BOOKMONGER
Variations
of a brain
BY BARBARA LLOYD McMICHAEL
In a time when the United
States seems increasingly polar-
ized, along comes a University
of Washington professor who has
written a book that may, in its own
way, provide a key to bridging
some of the chasms that seem to
have developed between the folks
who live in red or blue states of
mind.
That’s because this book has
nothing to do with politics.
“The Neuroscience of You” is
a tour through research that Chan-
tel Prat has conducted on how
brains function. The neuroscientist
quickly demonstrates that binary
left-brain and right-brain think-
ing is a simplistic and unhelpful
approach to a complicated topic.
That topic is one that, paid enough
attention, could reveal more useful
ways of relating to one another.
In surprisingly winsome fash-
ion, and often with self-deprecat-
ing humor, Prat points out that
while conventional neuroscience
tends to focus on finding com-
monalities about how the brain
works, she thinks it could be more
useful to explore the differences
that distinguish how individ-
ual brains function. Prat is inter-
ested in how those differences can
impact “not only the way we see
the world but the decisions we
make about how to behave in it.”
Nature and nurture both play
a role, as does internal chemis-
try. Prat notes countless variables
that figure into the way individuals
comprehend and respond to stim-
uli and situations.
In the first section of the book,
she discusses how the human
brain’s physical configuration of
two hemispheres is typically pretty
lopsided. This degree of asymme-
try – which can vary a great deal
from one brain to the next – influ-
14 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
ences the way the brain processes
information.
But Prat also points out that
everyone’s brain possesses a
unique mix of neurotransmitters:
chemical messengers like dopa-
mine and serotonin. Those, cou-
pled with substances like alco-
hol, caffeine or nicotine that an
individual might choose to con-
sume, also shape responses and
decision-making.
Over the course of this book,
Prat offers readers a series of sim-
ple tests to understand more about
how their own brains operate. And
she addresses the phenomenon of
confirmation bias, the tendency
to seek out individuals and ideas
similar to our own.
But the author encourages
readers to try harder to understand
the motivations
behind different
points of view.
This week’s book
She calls this
“The Neuroscience of
“mind-mind-
You” by Chantel Prat
fulness,” and to
Dutton – 380 pp – $28
help us figure out
how other peo-
ple might arrive
at conclusions that are different
from our own, she lays out steps
for reverse-engineering what other
folks’ brain decision-making pro-
cess must have been. (This is per-
haps an unintentionally creepy
way of phrasing what seems to be
a sincere call for more empathy.)
Throughout “The Neuroscience
of You,” Prat serves as a cheerful
and generous guide. But neurosci-
ence is no stroll in the park. This
reader, for one, is going to have to
revisit the concepts in this book
repeatedly before it all soaks in.
The Bookmonger is Barbara
Lloyd McMichael, who writes this
weekly column focusing on books,
authors and publishers of the
Pacific Northwest. Contact her at
barbaralmcm@gmail.com.