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Neuroscience of Everyday Life

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Your nervous system is you. All the thoughts, perceptions, moods, passions, and dreams that make you an active, sentient being are the work of this amazing network of cells. For many centuries, people knew that this was true. But no one was sure how it happened.

Now, thanks to the exciting new field of neuroscience, we can chart the workings of the brain and the rest of the nervous system in remarkable detail to explain how neurons, synapses, neurotransmitters, and other biological processes produce all the experiences of everyday life, in every stage of life. From the spectacular growth of the brain in infancy to the act of learning a skill, falling in love, getting a joke, revising an opinion, or even forgetting a name, something very intriguing is going on behind the scenes.

For example, groundbreaking research in the past few decades is now able to explain such phenomena as these:

Decisions: Studies of decision making at the level of neurons show that our brain has often committed to a course of action before we are aware of having made a decision—an apparent violation of our sense of free will.
Memory: Memory is composed of many systems located in different parts of the brain, which means that you can forget your car keys (information stored in the neocortex) but still remember how to drive (a learned skill requiring the striatum and cerebellum).
Willpower: Willpower is more than a metaphor; it's a measurable trait that draws on a finite mental resource, like a muscle. While any given individual has a consistent willpower capacity throughout life, it can be strengthened through training—again, just like a muscle.
Religion and spirituality: Three mental traits appear to be essential for the development of organized religion: the search for causes and effects, the ability to reason about people and motives, and language. Mystical experiences also trace to specific activities of the brain.
Opening your eyes to how neural processes produce the familiar features of human existence, The Neuroscience of Everyday Life covers a remarkable range of subjects in 36 richly detailed lectures. You will explore the brain under stress and in love, learning, sleeping, thinking, hallucinating, and just looking around—which is less about recording reality than creating illusions that allow us to function in our environment.

Your professor is distinguished neuroscientist and Professor Sam Wang of Princeton University, an award-winning researcher and best-selling author, public speaker, and TV and radio commentator. Professor Wang's insightful and playful approach makes this course a joy for anyone who wants to know how his or her own brain works. And his vivid, richly illustrated presentation assumes no background in science.

Fact or Fiction?

Professor Wang points out that a lot of what we think we know about our brains turns out to be wrong. While bringing you up to date on the latest discoveries in the field, he debunks the following persistent myths:

We use only 10% of our brains: Your brain is actually running at 100%! The myth about idle brain power has been promoted by self-help gurus and doesn't stand up to evidence from cases of brain damage, which always cause deficits in function.
Mozart makes babies smarter: Playing classical music may help calm you down around an infant, but it's not doing anything for the baby. The better strategy is to have children learn to play a musical instrument when they're older, which does improve brain development.
Women are moodier than men: Studies show that the sexes are tied in the moodiness contest, with men reporting just as frequent mood swings as women. However, both men and women tend to remember women's mood swings better.
We lose brain cells as we age: The brain is supposedly unique as an organ because it stops adding new cells after birth. In fact, some parts of the brain keep producing new neurons throughout life. The brain shrinks somewhat with age, but its neurons live on.
Tune Up Your Brain!

Operating on about the power consumed by an idling laptop, the brain has often been compared to a computer. But this, too, is a myth. Computers are logically straightforward in design, whereas the brain is a marvel of evolutionary makeshift, with layer upon layer of systems that started out with one function and then were adopted for something completely different. Some of the most primitive functions of the brain, such as the fight-or-flight response to danger, resist being overridden by the brain's powerful reasoning center, which evolved more recently.

Indeed, much of what the brain does is beyond our conscious control. Yet in some cases, there are ways to intervene. Here are some tips that Professor Wang offers to make your brain run at its optimum:

How to stick to a health regimen: If you use your nondominant hand to brush your teeth for two weeks, this can lead to a measurable increase in your willpower capacity. People who do this are then able to follow a diet or exercise program better.
Efficient learning: Don't cram! Spread out your study over several sessions. This allows your brain time to process what you've learned, which requires no additional effort on your part and greatly increases your retention of information.
Resetting your biological clock: The best way to beat jet lag is to use light, which cues your brain to where it is in the day/night cycle. For a flight between the United States and Europe, in either direction, a dose of afternoon sunlight after you arrive should help you adjust.
The best brain exercise is real exercise: Cognitive functions that normally deteriorate with age, such as memory and response time, can be boosted by aerobic exercise. The effect is largest if you are active starting in middle age, but it's never too late to start.
The Research Subject Is You

Turning from processes that are merely hidden to those that are utterly mysterious, The Neuroscience of Everyday Life also sheds light on these phenomena:

Love: Prairie voles are a fascinating model for studying human mating, since, unlike most other mammals, they are monogamous. For them as well as for us, the neurotransmitters oxytocin and vasopressin control the expression of pair bonding, better known as love.
Humor: Smiles and laughter are two emotional components of humor that have deep roots as social signals. Another component is characterized by the sudden flash of insight that occurs when we "get"a joke; brain scanners show where this happens.
Haunted houses: Neurological phenomena that people have associated with haunted houses, such as the feeling of an invisible presence, also occur from carbon monoxide poisoning—a once-common problem in houses lit with gas. Reports of haunted houses have dropped sharply with the decline in gas lighting.
Consciousness: Our conscious awareness extends to only a fraction of the stimuli registered by our brains, like a spotlight focusing on a tiny portion of a flood of data. Experiments show that we often act on unconscious information without being aware of it.
Professor Wang notes that it was his fascination with consciousness, free will, and other big ideas that led him to switch from physics, which he studied as an undergraduate, to a field he regards as even more alive with possibilities for breakthroughs that will change our worldview in fundamental ways.

That field, of course, is neuroscience. The Neuroscience of Everyday Life is your chance to explore a discipline that is now going through its golden age, with the advantage that the subject is not some abstract entity.

It's you.

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Sam Wang

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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
Profile Image for Emy.
132 reviews111 followers
December 25, 2020
PS: The version I read is waaaay shorter! Apparently it's only the course guidebook :(

The book is easy to read and comprehend, more like an introduction to neuroscience.
To understand the neuroscience of our daily lives, one has to understand the basics, that's why the author starts with some explanatory chapters on neurons and neurotransmitters.
While I was reading the chapter entitled "juicing the brain", the following phrase bothered me :
"Nicotine use leads to dependency because it causes plastic events of the brain." Which I think lacks accuracy. For starters, the plasticity of the brain is something seen with/as an answer to many activities/consumption of substances, and it [the plasticity] doesn't mean the occurrence of dependency ! The latter is a much complex mechanism, in which we find the liberation of dopamine (conveying a sense of reward), the capacity to induce reinforcing effects, and the negative consequences of abstinence that can have a crucial motivational significance for the maintenance of the addictive behavior (for this last part , I thank google).
Fan fact: the term plasticity was first coined by William James.
Back to the book:
The author also explains briefly, how we sense the exterior world, how the latter induces electrical signals that can be interpreted by the organism (in our case: the human being).
"Hearing is sensitive to vibrations; with this sense, vibrations are converted into spikes. In this case, the sensor cells are in the  cochlea  in the inner ear. Hair cells are the primary sensor cells. Vibrations in the hair cells trigger secretion of a neurotransmitter. Then, the target neurons, the  ganglion cells, re spikes that are transmitted along the auditory nerve into the brain."

"Perceived sensations depend on context to help us determine whether something is a good or bad event or whether something is important or not important.  The brain infers the most likely primary event that happened based on prior assumptions about what should happen and what is expected."


However, this system is not 100% accurate, for it can be tricked easily, which raises the question of the reliability of the system. Taking for example the optical illusions: ¨in general, and other illusions, too, take advantage of the complexity of the system. The general principle is that  the multiplicity of visual pathways can be fooled by cleverly designed visual stimuli to give you a feeling of an optical illusion."
I liked the diversification of the topics, from learning and memory to sexual behaviors and religion:
"using your non-dominant hand for two weeks to brush your teeth can lead to increased willpower. People who tried this reported other benefit, such as reducing their impulsive spending.."
, I've been using my non-dominant hand to do some tasks for a while, but I've never known that it was impacting my willpower :3 this finding is so thrilling :3 I'm not even going to look for other ressources on that matter x) (However, it doesn't seem to have an important effect on my impulsive perfumes' trading habits :'(

"Stress and depression hasten the death of neurons, but active parenting and exercise can encourage neuron generation and synapthic strenght.. Our emotional control improves with age".

"During orgasm, men might experience a reduction in vigilance."
:3
In the chapter about sex and love, the author mentions the role of vasopressin in forming a monogamous bound, imo it would've been better to talk about the other part of the story : vasopressin and polygamous.
Another interesting topic was the one about the out-of-the-body experiences, an explanation of the phenomenon was ¨The temporal and parietal lobes of the cortex are involved in visual and face processing, as well as emotional events. Oxygen deprivation is likely to interfere with activity in neural structures, and the temporal and parietal lobes seem particularly susceptible to oxygen deprivation. This association between oxygen deprivation and paranormal experiences may be associated with either temporal parietal seizures or temporal lobe seizures. …Near-death experiences are characterized by the feeling of leaving your physical body and seeing your life flashing before you. They have been estimated to happen in 9–18% of persons near the point of death. One possible explanation is that general oxygen deprivation can lead to widespread activity throughout the brain, and it’s easy to imagine that this kind of activity could account for accelerated thought processes.¨

The conciseness, albeit welcomed, presented some inconvenients : in the chapter about pain, the author talked about the effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of some illnesses, without providing the mechanism (if known) or the hypothesis explaining the reasons it works!
In the chapter about decisions, it was pointed out how we take decisions before even knowing it, I think it would have been better to include some examples of our daily lives (I feel fortunate for reading "before you know it)

Reading this book awakened the memory of savoring an appetizer : it's good and enjoyable yet not enough : it makes you crave for more!
Profile Image for Yaaresse.
2,157 reviews16 followers
March 2, 2023
A long GC at 36 parts, and it is a little dated because this science moves so fast. A lot happens in neurosciences in 8-10 years. Still, a very solid foundation for the material. Wish I'd had access to this before some of the more targeted courses on the subject.
Profile Image for DanielaK.
26 reviews3 followers
February 4, 2023
The lectures are intended for listeners who don´t know anything about neuroscience and as such are very good starting point for diving into the subject. The listener is familiarised with basic features and functions of various parts of brain, of course all in rather simplified but sufficient form for a layman. So you will find out what are synapses, what is pain, how memory functions, you get snippets of information on consciousness, free will and more.
I would recommend this set of lectures to anyone who wants to find out what is what, where and why so they might upgrade to go on to enjoy Andrew Huberman podcasts. Just kidding, you can enjoy them anyway.
Profile Image for Kim.
505 reviews
October 25, 2019
Quick read. Interesting.

Favorite quotes:


“Self-control is a better predictor or later success that IQ.”

“Consolidation requires time between learning sessions...that is why two 4 hour study sessions are more productive that one 8 hour session.”

“We only use 10% of our brains is a myth...we need all of our brain to function and a lot of brain activity is occurring even when we are focused one task...in general, we require 100% of our brains.”

“Using your non dominant hand for two weeks to brush your teeth can lead to increased will power.”
Profile Image for Jenni.
Author 5 books6 followers
October 28, 2022
While I love everything neuroscience, it was clear the audio version was recorded while the author was teaching a course, and not specifically for the audio book. Little vocal tics, stutters, and throat clearings were included, and the author has an unfortunately dry tone. Even more frustrating was that he frequently referenced images/slides that were not included with the accompanying PDF. Why have a PDF if you don’t include important visuals? The material was interesting enough to warrant 3 stars.
Profile Image for Gregory Eakins.
1,020 reviews25 followers
July 22, 2025
Neuroscience of Everyday Life is a series of lectures by Sam Wang covering a wide swath of research and history related to your brain.

The audio lectures sounds much like a live recording of the material. As such, you lose the visual references and the delivery leaves a lot to be desired.

The material is very much at a 100 level intro course, so it covers a lot of ground without diving into anything too deeply. That makes it very accessible to those just getting into the topic, but will be review for individuals who are already familiar with phycology and basic neuroscience.
Profile Image for Edd.
135 reviews19 followers
August 22, 2022
غالب فصول الكتاب جيدة، لكن عندما تطرّق البروفيسور الى الهوية الجنسية والمؤثرات عليها حاول -بشكل فاشل- ان يقدم بعض المعذرة للشذوذ.
وفي فصل الديانة والروحية، خرج من دائرة العلم الى دائرة التكهنات والافتراضات، وقام يقول ان الوحي الذي أنزل على الرسل، وكلام الله عز وجل مع موسى عليه السلام، كل ذلك يمكن ان يفسر بنوع من انواع الصرع والاختلاجات العصبية.
وظن نفسه يكحل العين فعماها بذكر مؤلفات الملحدين الجدد امثال دوكنز ودانيت!
109 reviews
October 19, 2022
Not the best lecturer in terms of delivery but packed with lots of fascinating and practical science-based information for everyday life. I listened to this on audiobook but having the video or a reference to a model of the brain would have been really helpful. This is one I'll need to revisit and study more in depth. Mind-blowing stuff!
Profile Image for Evil Secret Ninja.
1,820 reviews64 followers
April 19, 2023
I am absolutely fascinated by the brain and I love learning more about how it works and what everything means. This was a great discussion on the brain and neuroscience. It is related to my field and how what I do can cause changes in people's brains. The author was not completely up on the latest treatment for mental health disorders but it is a different side of treatment that I do.
Profile Image for Daniil Lanovyi.
483 reviews41 followers
August 17, 2020
This is a well-prepared and delivered introduction to neuroscience (and I've listened to a lot). It's well-structured and neatly delivered. The course doesn't go too deep into biology but rather stays high level, curious and applicable to everyday life.
70 reviews
April 12, 2021
Of many phaenomena, I would have liked a bit more about the neuron- and neurotransmitters-level explanations.
532 reviews2 followers
June 10, 2023
Good introduction course to the topic. It's packed with a lot of information in 36 lectures. From the basics how neurons work to specific topics like near death experiences.
Profile Image for Michelle.
15 reviews
November 1, 2023
10 out of 10! Sam Wang presents a lot of complex information in a very easy to understand and interesting way. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and learnt a lot from it.
Profile Image for Stan Bartkus.
44 reviews1 follower
Currently reading
September 15, 2024
Listening to the Audible Edition.
it is suggested to cover one chapter a day of the 36 chapters.
Profile Image for Anima.
152 reviews2 followers
December 4, 2024
Broad stroke lecture flush with general research, case studies and bad professor jokes which make it enjoyable and digestible. Published 15 years ago.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews

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