Today a brain scan reveals our thoughts and moods as clearly as an X-ray reveals our bones. We can actually observe a person’s brain registering a joke or experiencing a painful memory. In Mapping the Mind, award-winning journalist Rita Carter draws on the latest imaging technology and science to chart how human behavior and personality reflect the biological mechanisms behind thought and emotion. This acclaimed book, a complete visual guide to the coconut-sized, wrinkled gray mass we carry around inside our heads, has now been completely revised and updated throughout. Among many other topics, Carter explores obsessions and addictions, the differences between men’s and women’s brains, and memory.

• Comprehensively updated for this edition with the latest research, case studies, and contributions from distinguished scientists

• Addresses recent controversies over behavior prediction and prevention

• Includes new information on mirror neurons, unconscious cognition, and abnormalities in attention spans

Twice awarded the Medical Journalists’ Association prize, Rita Carter is a science and medical writer based in the United Kingdom. She is the author of Exploring Consciousness (UC Press) and Multiplicity: The New Science of Personality, Identity, and the Self, among other books.

Praise for the previous edition:

"Within the hardware of the brain there lurks a software called the mind. Rita Carter has brilliantly conveyed the thrill of discovering what this software can do."—Matt Ridley, author of Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters

"One of the clearest and best-illustrated attempts to explain the virtually inaccessible—the human brain."—John Cornwell, Sunday Times, London

"A handsomely produced and accessible introduction to our startling new ability to observe and map the brain . . . no previous knowledge is assumed, but by the end the reader will be well informed of the latest developments."—Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph

"A tour de force—a compendium of anecdote, research, and speculation that is quite breathtaking . . . excellent, informative, and provocative."—Haydn Ellis, Vice-Chancellor, Cardiff University

Finalist, Rhône-Poulenc Prize for Science Books