How We Feel

Description

What neuroscience can - and can't - tell us about our emotions What can a brain scan, or our reaction to a Caravaggio painting, reveal about the deep seat of guilt? How can reading Heidegger, or conducting experiments on rats, help us to cope with anxiety in the face of the world's economic crisis? Can ancient remedies fight sadness more effectively than anti-depressants? What does the neuroscience of acting tell us about how we feel empathy, and fall for an actor on stage? What can writing poetry tell us about how joy works? And how can a bizarre neurological syndrome or a Shakespearean sonnet explain love and intimacy? We live at a time when neuroscience is unlocking the secrets of our emotions. But is science ever enough to explain why we feel the way we feel? Giovanni Frazzetto takes us on a journey through our everyday lives and most common emotions. In each chapter, his scientific knowledge mixes with personal experience to offer a compelling account of the continual contrast between rationality and sentiment, science and poetry. And he shows us that by facing this contrast, we can more fully understand ourselves and how we feel.

Giovanni Frazzetto was born and grew up in the south east of Sicily. In 1995, after high school, he moved to the UK to study science at University College London and in 2002 he received a PhD from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. Since he was a student, he has worked and written on the relationship between science, society and culture, publishing in journals such as Nature. He now lives and works between London and Berlin.

Engaging... very refreshing. His analogies and images when explaining the science are often illuminating and sometimes inspired -- Henry Marsh * The Times * Intriguing... eye-opening. Frazzetto explains with admirable clarity -- James McConnachie * The Sunday Times * Takes us on a journey through anger, anxiety, grief, joy, love - and underlines just how far science can now go in its explanations before we have to call in the poets and the philosophers -- Lisa Appignanesi * Observer *