Carter’s book, The Brain in Minutes: 200 Key Ideas of Neuroscience Explained in an Instant, offers readers the chance to engage with complex ideas about the brain in a simplified manner. In an hour she managed to cover less than 50 of these ideas, but they nonetheless proved to be relatively accessible and easy to understand.
Carter warned that, to more informed members of the audience, her explanations might seem superficial but stressed that the talk was intended to allow the audience to “grasp certain ideas that will at least intrigue you” and instigate an appetite for learning more about the brain.
The science writer proceeded to take the audience through the brain’s main functions – movement, sensation, body awareness, sight, hearing, memory and thinking – and how these functions were carried out and transported through neurons, discussing the role of the amygdala, hippocampus, cerebellum, and prefrontal cortex. She also explained the oft talked-about differences between the Right and Left brain, although noted that these differences were not as prominent as popular myths would suggest.
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Inflamed Mind: A Radical New Approach to Depression, on Saturday 2nd of June at 2.30pm.