This is a short and easily comprehensible introduction to the relationships between the human mind or brain and the physical and social environments in which it operates. These relationships are examined and explained from the varied perspectives of eight leading experts in the fields of physiology, psychology, psychiatry, pathology, anthropology and behavioural science. Together they provide answers to a key question: how do we react to the world around us? The
book contains eight chapters, contributed by internationally distinguished neuroscientists, a leading behaviouralist and a social anthropologist, each of which explores an aspect of the dialectical relationship betwen the brain or mind and the physical environment. The contributors attempt to tease out
the complex and fascinating relations between human behaviour, our experience in the environment, the effects of our behaviour on the environment and the ways in which our environment affects us. This includes explorations of our perceptions of the physical and social environments which we inhabit, and our evolved preferences for certain surroundings, colours and landscapes. The book also discusses the vulnerability of the brain to external toxins, trauma and infections; in this context, the
effects of family breakdown and urban life on mental health, and the nature of emotions are considered. The book includes contributions from such familiar names as Professor Anthony Clare, well-known broadcaster and eminent psychiatrist, and Professor Colin Blakemore, who has presented several
science and psychology programmes on television and radio. In terms readily accessible to the general reader, this book offers a comprehensive introduction to a fascinating and highly topical area of neuroscience