The Balanced Brain
The Science of Mental Health
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5.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
How we can use what we’ve learned about the brain to improve our mental health
There are many routes to mental well-being. In this groundbreaking book, neuroscientist Camilla Nord offers a fascinating tour of the scientific developments that are revolutionising the way we think about mental health, showing why and how events—and treatments—can affect people in such different ways.
In The Balanced Brain, Nord explains how our brain constructs our sense of mental health—actively striving to maintain balance in response to our changing circumstances. While a mentally healthy brain deals well with life’s turbulence, poor mental health results when the brain struggles with disruption. But just what is the brain trying to balance? Nord describes the foundations of mental health in the brain—from the neurobiology of pleasure, pain and desire to the role of mood-mediating chemicals like dopamine, serotonin and opioids. She then pivots to interventions, revealing how antidepressants, placebos and even recreational drugs work; how psychotherapy changes brain chemistry; and how the brain and body interact to make us feel physically (as well as mentally) healthy. Along the way, Nord explains how the seemingly small things we use to lift our moods—a piece of chocolate, a walk, a chat with a friend—work on the same pathways in our brains as the latest treatments for mental health disorders.
Understanding the cause of poor mental health is one of the crucial questions of our time. But the answer is unique to each of us, and it requires finding what helps our brains rebalance and thrive. With so many factors at play, there are more possibilities for recovery and resilience than we might think.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nord, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, debuts with an invigorating examination of "how the brain constructs your mental health." Contending that "your brain's biology, and its close relationship with your physical body, creates, sustains and protects your mental state," Nord explains that some scientists think poor mental health stems from a "miscalibrated" dopamine system that provides only modest boosts in mood for "positive events" yet "overresponds" to negative ones. Expounding on the effects of various treatments and activities on the brain, Nord discusses how exercise prompts the release of "pleasure-related endogenous opioids" and how antidepressants increase activity in the amygdala (a brain region involved in emotional processing and interpretation) in response to positive stimuli while dampening responses to negative stimuli. The research fascinates—she reports on studies that found depressed subjects were more likely to view ambiguous facial expressions as angry, highlighting the complex interplay between mood and how the brain interprets the world—while correcting oversimplified scientific misconceptions. For instance, Nord explains that contrary to the common belief that serotonin deficits in the brain cause depression, studies have found that deliberately lowering serotonin levels doesn't reliably produce low mood in subjects, suggesting depression's origins are more complicated than the effects of one neurotransmitter. The result is a superior volume on the biological underpinnings of mental health.
