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3 teosta 48 jäsentä 5 arvostelua

Tietoja tekijästä

Marc Dingman, PhD, is the creator of the YouTube series 2-Minute Neuroscience and Assistant Teaching Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Pennsylvania State University.

Includes the name: Phd Dingman, Marc

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A little dry at times, but a wealth of information!
 
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filemanager | 2 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Nov 29, 2023 |
This is what I would call a “psychology-lite” book - it’s light on the science and heavy on the entertaining subject cases.
Heard about new conditions (Alice in wonderland syndrome) and found it a quick easy read.
 
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spiritedstardust | 1 muu arvostelu | Sep 9, 2023 |
I was in the mood for another engaging audiobook experience like Gory Details by Erika Engelhaupt recently, when I picked up Bizarre - The Most Peculiar Cases of Human Behavior and What They Tell Us about How the Brain Works by Marc Dingman.

The best chapter of the book by far was the chapter on Obsessions and the prevalence of pica, an eating disorder that makes patients eat things that most people would find unpalatable. Dingman includes cases where patients have eaten cigarette ashes, raw potatoes, burnt matchsticks, toothpaste and hair. It reminds me of the TV show Strange Addiction I once watched where an American woman was eating 'cushion' (foam from the inside of cushions and mattresses) and another was eating cigarette ashes.

Chapter 10 Out of Time included an interesting case of time agnosia, and Chapter 10 No Imagination reminded me of a case in my own family of a person unable to visualise in their mind's eye. The inability to produce mental imagery is known as aphantasia and it's estimated only 1-3% of the population have it.

Many different forms of agnosia and neurological disorders were covered, but none seemed bizarre or peculiar at all. Perhaps the title was too sensational, or I've been desensitised over the years having already learned about these conditions elsewhere and they're no longer strange and engrossing to learn about.

An annoying overuse of the word 'thus' at the start of sentences and 'such as' throughout the audiobook were draining and I felt for the narrator, who must have been hanging for the author to change up their opening lines.

Bizarre - The Most Peculiar Cases of Human Behavior and What They Tell Us about How the Brain Works by Marc Dingman was an informative listen and is recommended for those with an interest in neuroscience and/or brain science.
… (lisätietoja)
 
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Carpe_Librum | 1 muu arvostelu | Jul 27, 2023 |
It’s fascinating to think that everything we know, everything we feel, our entire sense of self, our connection to humanity and the insights from the generations that have come before us, is the result of electrical activity spiking in a wrinkled 3 pound mass of cells that lives in the dark and cushioned recesses provided by our skulls.

More accessible than most of the books that are available on this subject, the author of “Your Brain, Explained” - neuroscientist and professor Marc Dingman, PHD- does a fabulous job at unpacking some of the deepest mysteries behind our brains and how they do their magical work.

The book is organized in chapters based on core brain functions, casting a very wide net including: language, memory, sleep, sadness, fear, pain, pleasure, movement, vision and attention. Drawing on the latest scientific knowledge, the author covers brain structure, neurotransmitters, and the networks and connections required to support each function, as well as debunking related myths along the way. Each chapter is augmented by interesting, (and sometimes downright eerie) case studies of patients with specific brain injuries caused by stroke or illness that have helped scientist identify and correlate affected brain areas to corresponding loss of function. Similar to a tiny version of the wonderful works of Oliver Sacks, (who was and still is, one of my literary heroes) I found these case histories incredibly engaging, not to mention perfectly suited to serve as the introduction to the scientific insights provided on the topic.

We are learning much about the brain, and at the same time learning more about what we still need to learn. Dingman’s basic premise is that the brain is much more complex than originally thought, and early theories that attempted to simplify brain functions to a single neurotransmitter or brain network are rapidly losing favor. Even this book, with its well-crafted and expert smattering of research and insight will likely prove itself obsolete before too long.

I loved this book, and found its well written and easily digestible content in a subject that is typically so impenetrable a breath of fresh air. I recommend it highly to anyone who is interested in a fascinating tour of current neuroscience, written entirely for the layperson.

A big thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for an advance review copy of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.

Note re Trigger Warnings: Unfortunately, many early brain studies were structured around pinpointing impact after the creation of horrific brain injuries in animals, a process which is thankfully no longer deemed ethical. The results of most of these studies are covered at only a high level in this book, however the author provided a warning for one section of this book involving motor cortex experiments on dogs which was several pages long, and at his direction, I skipped this section. The book also contains one case study involving child abuse, as well as a detailed discussion on depression.
… (lisätietoja)
 
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porte01 | 2 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Apr 6, 2021 |

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Tilastot

Teokset
3
Jäseniä
48
Suosituimmuussija
#325,720
Arvio (tähdet)
½ 3.5
Kirja-arvosteluja
5
ISBN:t
8
Kielet
2