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The Dana Guide to Brain Health: A Practical Family Reference From Medical Experts. Book Review.

Book Review of The Dana Guide to Brain Health: A Practical Family Reference From Medical Experts, published by Dana Press. In short, this is a great reference click here to learn more book for health professionals and for people interested in learning more about the brain and how to maintain a healthy brain.

Dana Press kindly sent us a couple of books. One of them, The Dana Guide to Brain Health: A Practical Family Reference From Medical Experts, is our topic today.

We are impressed by what Dana is doing to insert neuroscience findings and implications into the public discourse.

No big surprise then, to find out so much quality content inside a 700-page one-of-a-kind guide.

The guide is really 4 books inside a common binding. Priced at a reasonable level, and with superb in-depth text and images in all relevant areas, the book can be used as a 1) Brain 101 tutorial, 2) brief summary of the basics of Brain Care and Wellness, 3) description of the stages of brain development, 4) reference guide for around 70 brain-related conditions.

In my personal opinion, every neuroscience, medical and psychology student, clinician and researcher should have this book in their hands to keep abreast of many recent developments, and also be exposed to professional development courses based on it. Many families and individuals interested in the brain should consider buying it too.

Given the focus of our blog-brain fitness for healthy individuals-, we particularly enjoyed the sections

- on intelligence, with sentences such as "It is extremely unlikely that an "intelligence pill" will be discovered in the near future" (P. 215)

- on "The Brain-Body Loop" which explains, among other things, the effects of stress,

- "Taking Advantage of New Findings and New Finding About the Adult Brain", with gems such as "Recent research on the brain has established two great principles. First, far from remaining static in adulthood, as we had long assumed, the human brain continues to grow and develop throughout our entire life span. This development takes place in two ways: by ongoing adjustments in signaling pathways and by the addition of new brain cells. Knowing this means that you should try, as you would with any fine, high-powered machine, to practice good maintenance to give it the best chance to provide peak performance...in many respects we can make a material difference in how it ages, and even induce it to perform better over time...Just as we may choose to strengthen our muscles with challenging workouts, we can encourage brain growth by keeping engaged in many different mental activities".