In Brave New Brain she succeeds at a daunting task, to walk the general reader through most of what is known today about the biology of mind. Quite an achievement!" - Michael Rutter, Science "Written with clarity and sensitivity, this study offers a refreshing, optimistic vision of the future."-Library Journal "Nancy Andreasen is an internationally respected neuroscientist and a gifted writer. Brave New Brain informs, provokes thought, conveys the excitement of science, indicates why science matters, and considers both the achievements with respect to clinical application and the difficulties involved. "In Brave New Brain, a fascinating book written for the lay public, Nancy Andreasen argues persuasively that there are now some real and important discoveries and that these are already altering psychiatric practice and will do so increasingly in the years ahead.Andreasen has written a truly outstanding book. Now, by revealing how combining genome mapping with brain mapping can unlock the mysteries of mental illness, she again offers general readers a remarkably fresh perspective on these devastating diseases-theirnature, treatment, and possible future prevention. Andreasen's bestselling The Broken Brain broke new ground in the public understanding of mental illness.
Thissection covers four major disorders-schizophrenia, manic depression, anxiety disorders, and dementia-revealing what causes them, what happens to the mind and brain, and how the illnesses are treated.Finally, the book shows how the powerful tools of genetics and neuroscience will be combined during the next decades to build healthier brains and minds. In perhaps the most fascinating section of the book, we read gripping stories of the people who develop mental illness, the friends and relatives who share their suffering, the physicians who treat them, and the scientists who study them so that better treatments can be found. She also shows the progress made in mapping the human genome, whose 30,000 to 40,000 genes are almost all active in the brain. Andreasen gives us an engaging and readable description of how it all works, from thebillions of neurons to the tiny thalamus to the moral monitor in our prefrontal cortex. Scientists today know more aboutthe brain than ever before, thanks to new imaging techniques and to discoveries in neuroscience and molecular biology. Nancy Andreasen, a leading neuroscientist who is also Editor-in-Chief of the prestigious American Journal of Psychiatry as well as the winner of the illustrious National Medal of Science, offers here a state-of-the-art look at what we know about the human brain and the human genome-and shows how these two vast branches of knowledge are coming together in a boldly ambitious effort to conquer mental illness.
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