So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of Patient H.M. tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Luke Dittrich’s book. Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader. This short summary and analysis of Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets includes: Historical context Chapter-by-chapter overviews Profiles of the main characters Detailed timeline of key events Important quotes Fascinating trivia Glossary of terms Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work About Patient H.M. by Luke Dittrich: Patient H.M. tells the extraordinary true story of Henry Molaison, a young man who underwent a lobotomy in 1953 in hopes of curing his epilepsy. Instead, he suffered extensive memory loss and would became the most studied patient in the history of neuroscience. Luke Dittrich, whose grandfather performed the surgery, artfully combines family history, medical science, and investigative journalism to create a suspenseful and unsettling narrative on the search to understand the most elusive of scientific research topics: the human memory. The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.

In the summer of 1953 maverick neurosurgeon William Beecher Scoville performed a groundbreaking operation on a twenty-seven-year-old epileptic patient named Henry Molaison. The operation failed to eliminate Molaison's intractable seizures, but it did have an unintended effect: Henry was left profoundly amnesic, unable to create long term memories.The story of Patient H.M., as he came to be known, is the story of how we came to understand memory, and better understand ourselves. Scoville's grandson, award-winning journalist Luke Dittrich, takes us on a journey through the history of neuroscience, from the first brain surgeries in ancient Egypt to the fraught debate between surgeons over lobotomy operations on the twentieth century; from the gleaming laboratory analysing Molaison's disembodied brain, to the archives of the decrepit New-England asylum where his grandfather first developed a taste for human experimentation. Dittrich's compelling, kaleidoscopic investigation confronts unsettling secrets in his own family history, and reveals how the bright future of modern neuroscience has dark roots in the forgotten history of psychosurgery, raising ethical questions that echo into the present day.

In the summer of 1953, maverick neurosurgeon William Beecher Scoville performed a groundbreaking operation on an epileptic patient named Henry Molaison. But it was a catastrophic failure, leaving Henry unable to create long-term memories. Scoville's grandson, Luke Dittrich, takes us on an astonishing journey through the history of neuroscience, from the first brain surgeries in ancient Egypt to the New England asylum where his grandfather developed a taste for human experimentation. Dittrich's investigation confronts unsettling family secrets and reveals the dark roots of modern neuroscience, raising troubling questions that echo into the present day.

Psychotic Disorders: Comprehensive Conceptualization and Treatments emphasizes a dimensional approach to psychosis--one of the most fascinating manifestations of altered brain behavior--that cuts across a broad array of psychiatric diagnoses from schizophrenia to affective psychosis and organic disorders like epilepsy and dementias. Written by an international roster of over seventy leading experts in the field, this volume comprehensively reviews, critiques, and integrates available knowledge on the etiology, mechanisms, and treatments of psychotic disorders, and outlines ways forward in both research and clinical practice towards more objective, mechanistically-based definitions of psychotic disorders. Chapters address topics such as psychosis phenomenology, biomarkers and treatments, the overlaps and interfaces between psychiatric disorders within the psychosis dimension, and novel disease definitions. Furthermore, the volume incorporates findings on potential mechanisms, bridges between various system levels (i.e., genetic, epigenetic, molecular and cellular, brain circuit and function, psychological, social, environmental and cultural) and their interactions, as well as the potential role in causation and/or mediation in psychotic disorders. Finally, the volume outlines a broad array of treatment approaches, from the readily available (e.g., psychopharmacology, various modalities of psychotherapy) to the experimental (e.g., cognitive interventions, neuromodulation). With a concluding section of forward perspectives conjecturing future directions and related challenges, this book aspires to stimulate new knowledge, generate novel frameworks, and carry new directions forward on psychotic disorders.

“A blistering and truly original work of reporting and analysis, uncovering America’s role in homogenizing how the world defines wellness and healing” (Po Bronson). In Crazy Like Us, Ethan Watters reveals that the most devastating consequence of the spread of American culture has not been our golden arches or our bomb craters but our bulldozing of the human psyche itself: We are in the process of homogenizing the way the world goes mad. It is well known that American culture is a dominant force at home and abroad; our exportation of everything from movies to junk food is a well-documented phenomenon. But is it possible America's most troubling impact on the globalizing world has yet to be accounted for? American-style depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anorexia have begun to spread around the world like contagions, and the virus is us. Traveling from Hong Kong to Sri Lanka to Zanzibar to Japan, acclaimed journalist Ethan Watters witnesses firsthand how Western healers often steamroll indigenous expressions of mental health and madness and replace them with our own. In teaching the rest of the world to think like us, we have been homogenizing the way the world goes mad.

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

Utopia is a work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More published in 1516 in Latin. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries.