The Disordered Mind

What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves

By: Eric R. Kandel

Narrated by: David Stifel

Eric R. Kandel, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his foundational research into memory storage in the brain, is one of the pioneers of modern brain science. His work continues to shape our understanding of how learning and memory work and to break down age-old barriers between the sciences and the arts.

In his seminal new audiobook, The Disordered Mind, Kandel draws on a lifetime of pathbreaking research and the work of many other leading neuroscientists to take us on an unusual tour of the brain. He confronts one of the most difficult questions we face: How does our mind, our individual sense of self, emerge from the physical matter of the brain?

The brain’s 86 billion neurons communicate with one another through very precise connections. But sometimes those connections are disrupted. The brain processes that give rise to our mind can become disordered, resulting in diseases such as autism, depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, addiction, and post-traumatic stress disorder. While these disruptions bring great suffering, they can also reveal the mysteries of how the brain produces our most fundamental experiences and capabilities - the very nature of what it means to be human. Studies of autism illuminate the neurological foundations of our social instincts; research into depression offers important insights on emotions and the integrity of the self; and paradigm-shifting work on addiction has led to a new understanding of the relationship between pleasure and willpower.

By studying disruptions to typical brain functioning and exploring their potential treatments, we will deepen our understanding of thought, feeling, behavior, memory, and creativity. Only then can we grapple with the big question of how billions of neurons generate consciousness itself.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Eric R. Kandel (P)2018 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"David Stifel provides a confident professorial tone in his narration of [Eric] Kandel's fascinating audiobook. Listeners searching for a fundamental review of neurobiology will find it satisfyingly comprehensive." (AudioFile Magazine)

Thoroughly enjoyed

I'm just an amateur reader of neuroscience, starting with the early writings of Oliver Sachs. I listen to a new book every 6 weeks or so, by whoever is the writer Dejeur. This one goes way beyond that pack. I am a nurse, so.not out o
By anatomy speak, so that must be disclosed. This book is highly thought out, and is almost poetic in delivery. Each fact and example fit seamlessly and draws the reader in. I learned so much or-i thought sinemet stopped working on Parkinson's patients due to tolerance. I was wrong. There is a connection between bipolar and schizophrenia. Which explains why both run in my family.....Which is also.explained. I will likely listen again. This would make an.ideal series for pbs. Do the producers of pbs hear me??????

Excellent Book

Extremely informative. For sixty years I have struggled with Depression and PTSD. Knowledge is everything.

Easy ...seriously interesting and easy to understand

Such fluid writing ! Love that this book was read by a skilled voice. Dr Kandel makes this complicated science a subject I will study more. And, at 76
I’d say my excitement for understanding our Brain and Our Unconscious has just scratched the surface
Someone you know or met has a disorder — you now will look at them with a higher resolution of understanding. Buy it !

Wonderful book

I loved the book, but I was a bit thrown off by the narrator 's pronunciation of certain words. Of course that doesn't affect the greatness of the book.

amazing overview

this book seems geared more toward people with some knowledge of neuroscience, because of his frequent references to very specific brain regions. that said, I found it an extraordinarily helpful summary of what we know about about the brain from well known brain abnormalities/differences.

Fascinating

This is the first audiobook I really took advantage of the accompanying pdf because of how in depth and interesting it is. The book covers autism, schizophrenia, depression, movement disorders, memory disorders, consciousness. All easy to understand and insightful.

Thrilling account of how the brain works

The book begins with the anatomy of a neuron and goes on to functional MRIs. It discusses the importance of genes in schizophrenia, depression and autism. Dr Kandel relates how psychotherapy can be helpful and even re Route neural pathways. All in all a wonderful book.

Excellent red!!!

I enjoyed this book. Great information for referencing research papers. Easy to understand. Reader was excellent.

Everyone has to hear it

Kandel is very small about the brain. But he is very ignorant of God. He misinterprets the 1952 Miller-urey experiment. The amino acids formed would never make the complex cytosine adenine guanine thymine building blocks of DNA without a lot of help from a chemist like God.

Excellent overview of a few neurological disorders

Dr. Kandel has put together an insightful, lucid, and digestible overview of some of the prototypical neurological and neuropsychological disorders, and utilizes this perspective to describe some of what we know about normal brain functioning and anatomy. Almost anyone with any background in neuroscience, neurology, psychology, or psychiatry will know of, and has been impacted by Dr. Kandel. At least when I was training in the 90s, he was the lead author of the main textbook, Principles of Neuroscience, by Kandel, Schwartz, and Jessell. It was superbly comprehensive and I still have it and actually still use it. Dr. Kandel is renowned for his work on memory and the short-term and long-term potentiation of neuronal circuits. That being said, as far as I can tell, this work is very accessible to the general public. His final few chapters bring together a synthesis of ideas with far-reaching societal implications about gender equality, free will, consciousness, criminal justice, and other topics which he feels might eventually lead to a new approach to scientific humanism. I would agree that the more these ideas are popularized and make their way into the cultural mainstream, the better our chances of utilizing science to guide rational policy decisions. Unfortunately, I am a little skeptical that we are ready to consider human nature from this perspective, as of yet.