The Scientific American Day in the Life of Your Brain -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Preface -- Introduction -- You Gotta Know the Territory: A Short Tourof Your Brain -- Your Neurotransmitters -- Charting the Day: Your Body Clocks -- The Best of Times? -- Part I: Coming to Consciousness -- Chapter 1: 5 a.m. Waking to the World -- Your Inner Alarm Clocks -- Your Brain Chemicals -- Larks and Owls -- Coming to Our Senses -- An Orchestra of Sensory Harmony -- Touch and Movement: Feeling Our Way -- Varieties of Touch -- Chapter 2: 6 a.m. Coming to Consciousness -- The Seat of Consciousness -- Emotion, Memory, and Consciousness -- It's Always About Networking -- Little Gray Cells and Big White Matter: Myelin in Your Brain -- Prime Time for Heart Attack and Stroke -- Chapter 3: 7 a.m. Those Morning Emotions -- Reason Needs a Neurochemical Boost -- Can Meditation Help Master Those Emotions? -- Is There a God Spot in Your Brain? -- Practice Makes Compassion -- Chapter 4: 8 a.m. Finding Your Way -- Why His Brain May Not Ask Directions -- How We Know Where to Find Our Lost Keys -- Part II: Engaging the World -- Chapter 5: 9 a.m. Encountering Others -- That Face, That Familiar Face -- Friend or Foe? Read My Face -- Mirror, Mirror: Copycat Neurons in the Brain -- The Broken Mirror: Autism Insights from Mirror Neurons and Face Perception -- Chapter 6: 10 a.m. Peak Performance-or Stress? -- Stress in the Brain -- The Alarm That Doesn't Stop: Why Chronic Stress Is So Bad -- Stress Destroys Neurons -- Stress Ups the Risk of Alzheimer's Disease -- The Very Thought of It Is Enough -- Multitasking-Again? -- The Limits of Multitasking -- How Your Brain Helps Your Job Kill You -- You Can Lull Your Brain Away from Stress -- Flow Versus Stress -- Chapter 7: 11 a.m. Decisions, Decisions, and More Decisions -- The Brain's CEO -- "Chemo Brain" Can Ambush Your CEO.

Choosing Economically -- Making an Emotional Moral Choice -- Choosing Wearies Your Brain -- The Brain Has a Section for Regret -- Chapter 8: 12 Noon The Hungry Brain -- How Hunger Works in Your Brain -- We're Losing Our Scents -- Still Hungry? When Hunger Goes Awry -- Why Calories Taste Delicious -- Addicted to (Fill in the Blank) -- Self-Control Sucks Your Energy -- Yes, There Is Such a Thing as Brain Food -- Part III: The Guts of the Day -- Chapter 9: 1 p.m. The Tired Brain -- Partial Recall: Why Memory Fades with Age -- Can You Help Your Brain Stay Young(er)? -- Predicting Alzheimer's Disease -- How Forgetting Is Good for the Brain -- Asleep at the Wheel-Almost? It Could Be Narcolepsy -- 1:54 P.M. Just Time for a Six-Minute Power Nap -- Chapter 10: 2 p.m. Bored Bored Bored -- Can't Get No Satisfaction? Maybe It's ADHD -- ADHD and Risk Taking Could Be Good-Sometimes -- Wired and Hooked: Addicted to Technology -- Chapter 11: 3 p.m. Your Pain Is Mainly in the Brain -- How Pain Hurts Your Brain -- Mind Under Matter, Mind over Brain -- Is Hypnosis Real? -- A Window into Traumatic Forgetting -- Chapter 12: 4 p.m. Exercise Your Brain -- Exercise Grows Neurons and Improves Memory -- Why We Get Food Cravings -- The Most Dangerous Time for Teens -- The Teen Brain Is Still Changing -- But Don't Forget Hormones -- Part IV: Time Out -- Chapter 13: 5 p.m. The Dimming of the Day -- Is It Really Depression? Or Just a Bad Patch? -- Searching for the Pathway to Depression -- Maybe You're Just SAD -- Magnetic Energy May Work When Meds Fail -- A Peak Time for Suicide -- Good Grief: Addicted to Grieving -- Chapter 14: 6 p.m. Coming Home -- An Oxytocin High -- Nobody Home? Loneliness Hurts -- Oh, Those Comforting Cravings. Or Is It Addiction? -- Bottoms Up: Where Many Alcoholics End -- Is Addiction the Result Rather Than the Cause of Brain Damage?.

Still Crazy After All These Years? Aging Isn't Stopping Drug Use -- Chapter 15: 7 p.m. Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance -- The Musical Path to the Brain -- Music Survives Brain Damage -- Your Brain Expands to Store Music -- So You Think You Can Dance? -- Born to Rock? -- The Creative Brain -- Right Brain, Left Brain? -- Don't Oversimplify That Right Brain Stuff -- The Musical Ear Is Learned, Not Born -- Chapter 16: 8 p.m. Humor Is Healthy -- The Best Medicine -- Tracking Your Internal Laugh Track -- TV Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor -- Part V: Winding Down -- Chapter 17: 9 p.m. Things That Go Bump in the Night -- How Fear Works in Your Brain -- Who's Afraid? Not These Brain Cells -- When the Brain Decides It's Time to Scram -- The Many Parts of a Violent Brain -- Chapter 18: 10 p.m. Lust, Sex, and Love -- Your Brain on Sex -- Women, Men, and Orgasms: How Alike Are They? -- Does the Penis Have a Brain of Its Own? -- What's Love Got to Do with It? Plenty, It Turns Out-for Women -- Are You Born Gay? Sexual Orientation Is Biology, Not Choice -- Chapter 19: 11 p.m. Falling Asleep -- The Five Stages of Sleep -- Insomnia: Curse of the Night -- Perhaps Less Is More? -- Interrupted Sleep? Don't Call It Insomnia. It's Normal -- Call Me Sleepless -- Still Awake? Can You Catch Up on Lost Sleep? -- Is Insomnia Worse for Night Owls? -- Chapter 20: 12 Midnight Sleeping in the Midnight Hour -- Strolling in Your Sleep -- Drifting into Dreamland -- Do Banished Thoughts Resurface in Dreams? -- Want to Dream More? Try Sleep Deprivation -- Part VI: Night Crew at Work -- Chapter 21: 1 a.m. Night Crew at Work -- Cleaning Up Your Neural Garbage -- Why Your Brain Doesn't Take a Break Already -- The 10 Percent Myth -- Chapter 22: 2 a.m. Going Against the Clock in Your Brain -- Disasters on the Night Shift -- Lack of Sleep Affects Doctors as Much as Alcohol -- Less Sleep? More Fat.

Biorhythm and Blues: Faulty Clocks -- Resetting Your Body Clock -- Chapter 23: 3 a.m. Awake and Anxious -- Where the Nightmare Begins -- A False Alarm -- That Pill to Fix Your Ills Has a Price -- 3:30 A.M. Night Nurse on Duty -- Chapter 24: Last Sleep -- 4:30 A.M. Awake So Early? You May Be an Unlucky Lark -- Your Brain Tomorrow -- Sources -- Illustration Credits -- Glossary -- About the Author -- Index -- Insert -- Clocks in the Brain -- Gateway to Consciousness -- Emotions and Memory -- Structures for Seeing -- A Cerebral Spot for Faces -- The Vicious Cycle of Stress -- Sensory Homunculus -- Feeling the Pain -- The Fear Response -- Singing in the Brain -- Mental Choreography -- The Brain's Moving Parts -- Anatomy of Aggression -- When the Cleaning Stops -- Humor in the Brain.