"Titillating and provocative essays from one of the freshest voices in science today -- Why do testicles hang the way they do? Is there an adaptive function to the female orgasm? What does it feel like to want to kill yourself? Does "free will" really exist? And why is the penis shaped like that anyway? In Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?, the research psychologist and award-winning columnist Jesse Bering features more than thirty of his most popular essays from Scientific American and Slate, as well as two new pieces, that take readers on a bold and captivating journey through some of the most taboo issues related to evolution and human behavior. Exploring the history of cannibalism, the neurology of people who are sexually attracted to animals, the evolution of human body fluids, the science of homosexuality, and serious questions about life and death, Bering astutely covers a generous expanse of our kaleidoscope of quirks and origins. With his characteristic irreverence and trademark cheekiness, Bering leaves no topic unturned or curiosity unexamined, and he does it all with an audaciously original voice. Whether you are interested in the psychological history behind the many facets of sexual desire or the evolutionary patterns that have dictated our current mystique and phallic physique, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? is bound to create lively discussion and debate for years to come"--

This book is a counterpart to the classic The Art of Loving. Whereas the main topic there was man's capacity to love, the main topic here is his capacity to destroy, his narcissism, and his incestuous fixations. Whereas the topic of non-love fills most of these pages, the problem of love is taken up in a new and broader sense, namely, the love of life. The love of life, independence, and the overcoming of narcissism form "a syndrome of growth" against "a syndrome of decay" formed by love of death and malignant narcissism.

Already the subject of considerable pre-publication discussion, this magisterial work by one of the nation's leading neuroscientists presents a radically new view of the function of the brain and nervous system. Its central idea is that the nervous system in each individual operates as a selective system resembling natural selection in evolution, but operating by different mechanisms. By providing a fundamental neural basis for categorization of the things of this world it unifies perception, action, and learning. The theory also completely revises our view of memory, which it considers to be a dynamic process of recategorization rather than a replicative store of attributes. This has deep implications for the interpretation of various psychological states from attention to dreaming. Neural Darwinism ranges over many disciplines, focusing on key problems in developmental and evolutionary biology, anatomy, physiology, ethology, and psychology. This book should therefore prove indispensable to advanced undergraduate and graduate students in these fields, to students of medicine, and to those in the social sciences concerned with the relation of behavior to biology. Beyond that, this far-ranging theory of brain function is bound to stimulate renewed discussions of such philosophical issues as the mind-body problem, the origins of knowledge, and the perceptual basis of language.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This intensely personal account of the little written-about sacred dimension of menopause combines religious studies with psychology to "understand menopause as soul-eventregarding its symptoms as symbols" and provides insight into what this transition can be like for those women who choose to embrace it as a meaningful part of their lives.

Executive Functions in Health and Disease provides a comprehensive review of both healthy and disordered executive function. It discusses what executive functions are, what parts of the brain are involved, what happens when they go awry in cases of dementia, ADHD, psychiatric disorders, traumatic injury, developmental disorders, cutting edge methods for studying executive functions and therapies for treating executive function disorders. It will appeal to neuropsychologists, clinical psychologists, neuroscientists and researchers in cognitive psychology.

The Noradrenergic Neurons examines the mechanisms that regulate the release and synthesis of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline. Noradrenaline (or norepinephrine) and the physiological activity of the cells that manufacture and release it, play an important role in response to stress and the development of resistance to stress, as well as psychological mood itself. This book discusses the response of the various nonadrenergic receptor subtypes to noradrenaline, and the long-lasting changes that underlie the striking plasticity of function manifested by noradrenergic cells, which in turn are reflected in observable behavioral plasticity In recent years there has been no single book that presents an up-to-date synthesis of current knowledge on the biochemical, anatomical, and physiological aspects of this important group of brain and peripheral nervous system cells and their function in the whole behaving organism, and this book aims to fill that gap. This is informative reading for students of physiological psychology, neurochemistry, and medicine.