Out of Your Mind: The Biggest Mysteries of the Human Brain

Cartoonist Cham (We Have No Idea) teams up with neuroscientist Godwin for this fizzy investigation of how the brain works. Mixing science with lighthearted illustrations, the authors survey how different brain regions affect behavior, demonstrating the frontal lobes’ importance to personality with a brief comic about a 19th-century railroad worker who developed a bad temper after an explosion damaged his left frontal lobe. The authors delve into the physiological underpinnings of love by explaining that positive stimuli cause the release of dopamine, which deactivates the brain’s fear center and calls on the hippocampus to encode the experience “so you can remember later what led to this enjoyment.” Cham and Godwin highlight some fascinating if well-known experiments and case studies, describing, for instance, how “Patient H.M.” lost the ability to form new memories after a doctor removed his hippocampus in 1933. Unfortunately, the discussions can feel rudimentary, with a chapter on free will revolving around the obvious point that such behavior as sneezing and crying appear to be innate and therefore unconscious. Diverting if insubstantial, this is heavy on “pop” and light on “science.” Illus. Agent: Seth Fishman, Gernert Co. (Jan.)