The Dana Guide to Brain Health

by The Dana Press; Flint Beal; Floyd Bloom; David Kupfer; William Safire

• ISBN13: 9780743203975
• ISBN10: 0743203976
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-12-24
• Publisher: Free Press

Summary

Today, we know beyond any doubt that the brain plays a crucial role in our everyday health, and, indeed, makes us who we are. But the Internet, television, and newspapers abound in contradictory information about it, and, as a result, the insights we wish

Author Biography

Floyd E. Bloom, M.D., is Chairman of the Department of Neuropharmacology at The Scripps Research Institute in California, President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and former editor in chief of the journal Science M. Flint Beal, M.D., is Neurologist in Chief of the New York and Presbyterian Hospital Anne Parrish Titzell Professor and Chairman of Neurology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University David J. Kupfer, M.D., is Thomas Detre Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and Director at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic

Table of Contents

Using Our Heads: A Foreword	p. xiii
Introduction: Welcome to Your Brain	p. xvii
How to Read This Book	p. xxi
Contributors	p. xxiii
Your Brain: A Primer	p. xxxii
Understanding Your Brain
How to Think About the Brain	p. 3
How We Know: Learning the Secrets of the Brain	p. 14
Basic Brain Care: Protecting Your Mental Capital	p. 31
The Brain-Body Loop	p. 41
Your Brain Through Life
Prenatal Development	p. 61
Brain Development in Childhood	p. 83
The Adolescent Brain	p. 102
The Brain in Adult Life and Normal Aging	p. 116
The Healthy Brain
The Body Manager	p. 135
The Major Senses: Sight, Hearing, Taste, Smell, and Touch	p. 136
Body Regulation	p. 142
Basic Drives: Eating, Sleeping, and Sex	p. 150
Movement, Balance, and Coordination	p. 158
Pain Perception	p. 165
Consciousness	p. 171
Emotions and Social Function	p. 179
Emotions	p. 180
Inhibition and Control	p. 185
Temperament	p. 190
Attention and Motivation	p. 196
Learning, Thinking, and Remembering	p. 200
Decision Making and Planning	p. 201
Intelligence	p. 210
Learning and Memory	p. 217
Speech, Language, and Reading	p. 226
Visualization and Navigation	p. 232
Creativity, Talents, and Skills	p. 236
Conditions of the Brain and Nervous System
Conditions That Appear in Childhood	p. 247
Dyslexia	p. 248
Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder	p. 254
Mental Retardation	p. 259
Cerebral Palsy	p. 265
Autism	p. 270
Metabolic Diseases	p. 278
Neurofibromatosis	p. 284
Hydrocephalus	p. 288
Spina Bifida	p. 293
Tumors of Childhood	p. 298
Disorders of the Senses and Body Function	p. 306
Sleep Disorders	p. 307
Narcolepsy	p. 315
Epilepsy and Seizures	p. 319
Dizziness and Vertigo	p. 327
Seeing Problems	p. 332
Hearing Problems	p. 341
Smelling and Tasting Problems	p. 347
Autonomic Disorders	p. 352
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome	p. 357
Emotional and Control Disorders	p. 362
Depression	p. 363
Anxiety and Panic	p. 371
Social Phobia (Social Anxiety Disorder)	p. 376
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder	p. 379
Bipolar Disorder	p. 385
Schizophrenia	p. 390
Borderline Personality Disorder	p. 394
Eating Disorders	p. 399
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder	p. 405
Substance Abuse and Addiction	p. 409
Alcoholism	p. 419
Violence and Aggression	p. 426
Suicidal Feelings	p. 429
Infectious and Autoimmune Disorders	p. 434
Multiple Sclerosis	p. 435
Shingles/Herpes Zoster	p. 444
Neurological Complications of AIDS	p. 448
Lyme Disease	p. 453
Meningitis	p. 458
Viral Encephalitis	p. 462
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease	p. 468
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus	p. 471
Disorders of Movement and Muscles	p. 476
Parkinson's Disease	p. 477
Parkinsonism Plus	p. 484
Tremors	p. 490
Dystonia, Spasms, and Cramps	p. 494
Tourette's Syndrome and Tics	p. 497
Ataxia	p. 501
Huntington's Disease	p. 505
Peripheral Neuropathy	p. 511
Guillain-Barre Syndrome	p. 516
Bell's Palsy	p. 520
Myopathies	p. 523
Myasthenia Gravis	p. 530
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis	p. 535
Pain	p. 539
Headache	p. 540
Migraines	p. 548
Back Pain and Disk Disease	p. 553
Chronic Pain	p. 559
Trigeminal Neuralgia	p. 565
Nervous System Injuries	p. 569
Ischemic Stroke	p. 570
Hemorrhagic Stroke	p. 576
Brain Trauma, Concussion, and Coma	p. 581
Spinal Cord Injury	p. 591
Paraneoplastic Syndromes	p. 600
Brain Tumors	p. 604
Nutritional Disorders	p. 610
Chemicals and the Nervous System	p. 617
Disorders of Thinking and Remembering	p. 624
Alzheimer's Disease	p. 625
Amnesias	p. 635
Dementia	p. 639
Trouble with Speech and Language	p. 643
Apraxias	p. 648
Agnosias	p. 651
Glossary	p. 655
Drugs Used to Treat the Brain and Nervous System	p. 661
Suggested Reading	p. 669
Resource Groups	p. 673
The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives	p. 687
The European Dana Alliance for the Brain	p. 695
About the Editors	p. 701
Index	p. 703
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Chapter One: How to Think About the Brain Since a human brain weighs on average some three pounds, it is easy to hold one in your hands. This simple fact somehow makes it even harder to imagine how such a small mass of tissue can be the source of all that we think of as human. Yet that is what the brain is, and how that can possibly be is one of the most fundamental questions in brain science. What is the link between the anatomy of a brain and the workings of a human mind? The big challenge is that there are no obvious moving parts within the brain -- it does not operate mechanically as our hearts and lungs do. If we simply look at the brain, our only remote clue about how it works is that it seems to be made up of different parts, easily discernible to the naked eye (see illustrations on page 4). In addition to the cerebral hemispheres (resembling a pair of large walnuts pressed together), the smaller structure that sits behind them (the cerebellum) is visible, as is the stalk that connects to the spinal cord (the brain stem). But there are many more regions than these three.One easy way to think about the brain would be to view each of these different regions as having a clear function. Every part would be a sort of independent minibrain, controlling one aspect of our mental and behavioral repertoire: movement, emotion, ethics, balance, mathematical thinking, and so on. Simple and attractive though this idea is, it quickly runs into problems. After all, such a scenario would merely be miniaturizing the problem, not solving it; we would still have to figure out how each of those minibrains operates. And, as neuroscientists have learned through extensive observations and experiments, the brain just doesn't work that neatly.Let's start with a straightforward way of trying to match up the brain's physical structures with specific functions. We know that within the animal kingdom, each species has a very different range of abilities and behavior patterns. If the brains of different animals diverge in form, that would give us significant clues about what structures are important for what kinds of functions. For instance, no animal has a language function anywhere near as sophisticated as ours. If there is a particular structure for language, it should be especially well developed in human brains, and small or nonexistent in the brains of other species.However, the brains of very different creatures, such as a reptile, a bird, and a mammal, differ mainly in size. In all cases we can make out the same big features: the hemispheres, the brain stem, and the cerebellum. So whatever makes one species so different from another -- and above all makes the human species so different even from other primates -- is not some new, clearly conspicuous structure in their brains that no other animal has.If, however, we look at various animals' brains for a difference not inqualitybut inquantity,then one clue about the physical basis of mental differences becomes apparent. The biggest discrepancy appears in the surface of the outer layer of the hemispheres. This layer is called the cortex, after the Latin for "bark," because it wraps around the brain the way its namesake wraps around a tree. In a rat or rabbit, for example, the surface of the cortex is completely smooth. In a cat it has clear convolutions. By the time we look at monkeys and apes, and eventually humans, the cortex takes on an ever more wrinkled appearance. Why?Imagine trying to hold a sheet of paper in one fist. The more you crumple the paper, the more the sheet will fit inside your fingers. In a way, this is what has happened to the cortex within the skull. As species have become more sophisticated, the surface of their cortices has increased faster than the limited confines of their heads. The only way to develop more "working surface" in the cortex was to fold and wrinkle it. We can see this same evolutionary trend in