![]() ![]() A psychiatrist wrote that our category “Neurological Diseases and Disorders” implied that these books were not part of psychiatry, and added, “A very sad idea!” Perhaps that category is better described as “Mental and Neurological Disorders.” An internationally known psychologist nominated a book that an equally well known neuropharmacologist derogated, in his note to us, as “basically a modern ‘myth of mental illness anti-reason, anti-psychiatry screed.'” Some told us that books were in the wrong category, or not for lay readers. This would be a sorry survey if it did not spark disagreements. Books listed here are not endorsed by the Dana Alliance, of course they are the choices of responding Dana Alliance members.īook lovers (not to mention authors) have strong opinions. We thank all Dana Alliance members who responded, with special thanks to those who wrote comments on their ballots. Barondes’s out-of-print Molecules and Mental Illness will be back in a new paperback edition in a few months.) ![]() Perhaps because his new book, Mood Genes, became an immediate hit, Samuel H. Why should these outstanding books be out of print? (They may not be for long. Second, we saw an opportunity for publishers. First, many readers, including most college students, will have easy access to a library. Possibly, but we decided to list the books. Some scientists wrote to us, pointing this out and asking if readers would be frustrated. Where possible, though, we also mention new editions, especially expanded and updated editions. We try to give original publication dates few fields of science threaten the new book with such rapid obsolescence (but some books survive, as you will see). Using a point scoring system, their votes were tabulated to produce the winning books listed in the special tear-out insert.Ī few comments on the brief reviews that follow. Some 35 Dana Alliance scientists across the country responded by our deadline. From these we created a ballot sent to members of the Dana Alliance, who were asked to vote their first, second, and third choice in each category. We began by defining 12 categories, such as “Chemistry of the Brain,” “Consciousness,” and “Memoirs and Personal Experience.” We then asked a group of widely read scientists and experienced science book editors to nominate books in each category. We decided to ask them to give Cerebrum readers their book recommendations. The scientists in the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, neuroscientists concerned with informing the public about the progress and promise of brain research, take pride in the increased media coverage of brain research. Where should the reader begin? What are the great books, past and present, that capture the unfolding story of the brain and how brain research is changing our ideas about memory and emotion, life span and language, neurological disorders and psychiatric syndromes? The Survey This has nurtured an informed, curious audience for more information and ideas. Whatever else may have doubled in this decade, coverage of brain research by the media certainly has. (In contrast, outstanding books about vision and the brain began appearing well over a decade ago, after some 30 years of intensive research in that area.) This seems to be happening in research on emotion and the brain, for example, where Joseph LeDoux’s The Emotional Brain and Antonio R. Why? As research accumulates, new areas of brain research reach the critical mass of information required to deal with questions of interest to such readers. More recently, books about specific aspects of the brain and brain research, also for the lay reader, have begun to appear. ![]() Scientists first responded to this flood of information by writing general books about the brain for lay readers (a category that includes scientists reading outside their research specialties). It is probably the estimate that our knowledge of the brain has doubled over the past decade. The most frequently cited “brain statistic” is not the number of patients on antidepressants or the percentage of our genes devoted to shaping our brains. ![]()
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