The Neuroscience of You: How Every Brain Is Different and How To Understand Yours

Cognitive neuroscientist Prat (psychology, neuroscience, and linguistics, Univ. of Washington) wants to help readers understand their brain—how it learns, remembers, and does some of the things it does people don’t always like (such as having a word or name on the tip of your tongue). She does so in a friendly, personable voice that makes the complexities of the brain accessible. She covers standard psychological ground, from learning and memory to specialization of different areas of the brain and includes ground-breaking research that may change some of what you thought you knew about yourself and your mind. Most psychology textbooks and research focus on what our brains have in common, but Prat is also very interested in how they vary. Although some of the footnotes can detract from the flow of the narrative, they are easily skipped or returned to. Prat includes simple tests and puzzles to illustrate her points and provides numerous footnotes that sometimes add substance and other times whimsy to her narrative.