The Private Life of the Brain

Description

As our knowledge of the brain grows beyond the wildest expectations, the time is ripe to explore pleasure in terms of workings of the mind. Pleasure is the most marvellous sensation, the most prized state, but also, properly understood, the most basic type of consciousness. Understanding pleasure suggests new ways of understanding consciousness itself - by looking at the neurological characte of our most primitive emotions. In this volume, Susan Greenfield explains various mysteries: for example how different experiences give rise to similar sensations in the mind - such as via sport, raves, or orgasm; the workings of recreational drugs; and the neurological character of pleasure - which reveals a complex, close relationship to feelings of fear (for example, the appeal of the rollercoaster). .

Susan Greenfield is a leading neuroscientist based at the Laboratory of Pharmacology, Oxford. In 1994 she was the first woman to give the annual Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. She is the presenter for BBC2's Brain Story.