Category Archives: Book Reviews

Barbara Oakley, Terrence Sejnowski, and Alistair McConville have authored a students’ guide to learning. The book, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying – A Guide for Kids and Teens, is written in a way that is easily accessible to young people and full of helpful learning tips that are supported by neuroscience. It includes pictures illustrated by Oliver Young, vivid metaphors, comprehension questions, and chapter summaries to make the ideas stick. Learning How to Learn is essential for middle- or high-school libraries and would make an ideal gift to young people who are seeking to improve their performance in school.

Oakley and Sejnowski are the co-creators of the largest online course also titled “Learning How to Learn.” Oakley is a professor of engineering at Oakland University in Rochester Michigan. Sejnowski is a neuroscientist, Howard Hughes Medical investigator and professor at the Salk Institute and the University of California, San Diego.

Fittingly, at the outset, the authors explain that one helpful learning strategy is previewing what you will read. They suggest being an active reader by taking notes and asking and answering questions while reading.

Oakley, et. al. explain that there is a network in the brain that supports focused thinking and a separate network that supports diffuse thinking. Typically, we do not engage these two networks simultaneously, but both are important. As such, we need to focus intently on our work sometimes and reward ourselves with opportunities to engage the diffuse-thinking network at other times. Procrastinating can interfere with high quality learning because we run out of time to study. The Pomodoro Technique, in which one eliminates distractions, sets a timer for 25 minutes, focuses intently on one task for that whole time, and then rewards oneself with a diffuse thinking task (like exercise), can be effective for combatting procrastination. The authors suggest also starting with the tasks you least want to do and setting a time to stop working for the day to promote focus while working.

The authors explain that brain cells or “neurons” and the paths of communication between them form our thoughts. The more we activate these paths of communication the stronger they become and the better we learn.  They explain that our working memory capacity—the ideas we hold in mind at one time—is limited, but our long-term memory ability is unlimited. Our goal should be to move information efficiently from working memory to long-term memory. As such, the authors suggest that rather than studying by merely rereading, we should actively pull ideas out from the to-be-learned material. We can use songs, metaphors, and analogies to help form connections between ideas and support long-term memory. We should clarify ideas that we do not understand by asking for help or searching the internet. To remember ideas we should pay attention when absorbing information, avoid tricking ourselves into thinking we know material that we do not (i.e., do not look at the answers at the back of the book), and construct visual representations of ideas. We should also avoid multi-tasking, which dampens our working memory ability. The authors suggest other helpful strategies such as varying the places you study, relying on multiple senses to reinforce learning, and journaling about what you have learned and what you still need to study.

Oakley, et. al. advocate for involvement in clubs or activities that relate to your interest and spending time with people who can stimulate your thinking. They also explain that learning about topics that are very different from one’s interest can actually improve one’s understanding in the domain of interest. New subjects or skills may not feel fun at first, but with dedicated effort they may become enjoyable.

The authors mention the importance of getting sufficient sleep, exercising regularly, and eating a healthy diet.

They offer test-taking tips. For example, they suggest breathing deeply and reframing anxious feelings during testing as feelings of excitement about the opportunity to show what you know.  They suggest starting a test by glancing at the hardest problems so that you can passively think about those challenging questions while working on simpler ones.

The authors conclude on an optimistic note. Just because a student has been performing poorly in school does not mean he or she will always struggle. Having a positive attitude about learning, especially when paired with knowledge about ways to learn effectively, can carry a student far.  Appreciating that learning is an empowering experience and that it is a privilege that many young people do not have can help students make the most of their learning.

Oakley, B., Sejnowski, T., & McConville, A. (2018). Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying.New York, NY: Tarcher Perigee.

Where is your mobile phone right now?  How much time have you spent on it today? Could you stand to be without it? In Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, Adam Alter, New York University Stern School of Business associate professor and New York Times bestselling author, discusses the large and increasing rate of behavioral addictions (especially to technology). He examines why behaviors become addictive and what we can do to reduce addiction. About half of the population in the developed world is addicted to something, and for the majority of these people it is a behavior. These addictions stop people from engaging with important and healthy activities. However, because they are largely produced by environmental circumstances, we can change our environments to curb these addictions. Irresistible is an informative read for educators and parents who are worried about young people who are unable to put down their phones or video games, and for people who themselves may be part of the pandemic of behavioral addiction.

Behaviors become addictive when they involve small, concrete, quantifiable goals that are slightly beyond reach, increasing task-difficulty, and positive feedback that occurs in unpredictable increments. Noticing improvements in performance, wishing to resolve something that is unresolved, and engaging in social comparisons can also make a behavior addictive. Many modern online games, social media websites, and even email have these elements to them.  Addiction is being deeply attached to these experiences, even though the rewards are out-weighed by long-term damage.  Addictions are different from obsessions or compulsions in that addictions are pleasurable to pursue, whereas obsessions and compulsions are unpleasant not to pursue. Eventually people with an addiction may come to dislike the substance or behavior they are addicted to because of the adverse consequences it has on their life, but they may still want or crave the substance or behavior. The dopaminergic system in the brain is involved in this feeling of wanting.

While the American Psychological Association recognizes that it is not only substances that can be addictive, it still has not officially recognized some addictions such as to exercise, love, or smartphones.  Further, some people oppose the idea that behaviors can be addictive or that if close to half the population suffers from addiction, it can really be an illness. Alter shows that each of these ideas is false and argues that under certain conditions any of us could become addicts.

The adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” applies to behavioral addiction.  The best way to stem the rising tide of addiction is to stop addictions from forming.  Parents should limit their kids, especially young kids, screen time. They should attempt to draw connections between the content on-screen and experiences in the child’s life.  These steps may stem the media-induced decline in children’s ability to read emotions, interact with others, and develop robust attentional and memory abilities.

For people who are already addicted, they must first realize that their addiction is a problem. Cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing can help make an individual aware of the costs and benefits of his/her addictive behavior, so that the individual can decide for himself that he is motivated to change. The riskiest environment for addicts is one with cues that remind them of the link between certain behaviors and desirable outcomes. The riskiest time in an addict’s recovery is when things are going well for the first time after hitting rock-bottom.  Will-power alone is unlikely to be enough to break an addiction. Instead, understanding why the addiction was rewarding and addressing that, or replacing it with a healthier alternative is more likely to be effective.  Redesigning one’s environment to limit access to temptations, blunting the extent to which unavoidable temptations are tempting, or instituting systems of punishment when one engages in a bad habit, can be effective.  We are all more likely to act in desirable ways if doing so is fun and easy.  Gamification, in which an experience is turned into a game so that the experience in and of itself is rewarding, can be an effective way to promote learning and engagement with other desirable behaviors.

By raising awareness of just how wide-spread and likely to increase behavioral addiction is and by offering steps to address behavioral addiction, Alter offers insights that can help our society be healthier, happier, and more productive.

Alter, A. (2017). Irresistible: The rise of addictive technology and the business of keeping us hooked. New York, NY: Penguin.

One of the most complex unsolved mysteries in science is how the brain produces consciousness.  The study of brain disorders not only helps us understand and treat those conditions; it also renders insights into questions about human consciousness, sense of self, and creativity.  It can help us appreciate both our individuality and our shared humanity. Eric R. Kandel, Columbia University professor, Howard Hughes Medical Institute senior investigator and Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, advances these beliefs in his book The Disordered Mind: What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves. Kandel, who also authored The Age of Insight, reviews the latest research on autism, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, addiction, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease to illuminate the factors that contribute to these diseases, how the diseases are experienced, possible points of intervention, and what these diseases reveal about our social, emotional, decision-making, memory, kinesthetic, and creative abilities more generally.

Kandel commences with a brief overview of the history of psychiatry and neurology and modern tools for studying the brain and disordered behavior. He emphasizes that genes and environment interact to disrupt neural circuitry, resulting in disordered minds.  Brain disorders can be caused by over or under active brain circuits or ineffective communication within the brain because of injury, altered synaptic connections, or developmentally inappropriate patterns of brain connection.

Kandel contends that we are inherently social; typical development cannot proceed in isolation. Yet, autism is a disorder related to difficulty connecting with people and understanding others’ minds. The so called “social brain,” which includes the inferior temporal cortex, amygdala, temporoparietal junction, and other regions, may be disrupted in autism. Autism spectrum disorders, like several other brain disorders, have a strong genetic basis and may come about in part because of age-related mutations in fathers’ sperm.

We are not only social beings but also emotional. Indeed, emotions, or states of readiness in our brain in response to our surroundings, play a critical role in our everyday lives and in our constructions of our sense of self.  One in every three Americans will experience anxiety at least once in their life, and about 8% will experience post-traumatic stress disorder. Depression is a mood disorder that affects about 5% of people and is characterized by feelings of extreme sadness, hopelessness and worthlessness and by a lack of energy.  Although it can be cruelly stereotyped as such, depression is not a personal or moral weakness. Kandel explains how the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, ketamine, cognitive behavioral theory, and brain stimulation can all be used, under different conditions and in different combinations, to treat depression. These disorders are teaching us about where emotions arise in the brain (i.e., in areas including the hypothalamus, amygdala, striatum, and prefrontal cortex), how the brain and body engage in bidirectional communication, and how emotions impact behavior, decision-making, and morality.

Several brain disorders are caused by dopamine imbalances. Schizophrenia is a neurodevelopmental disorder related to excessive dopamine. It affects 1% of the population by disrupting thinking, behavior, memory, and sense of self starting in late adolescence.  Whereas depression results primarily from functional abnormalities in the brain, schizophrenia results primarily from anatomical abnormalities. Unfortunately, most currently available treatments for schizophrenia address only the symptoms related to disordered thoughts and not the symptoms like lack of motivation. Fortunately, preemptive therapy for people at risk for developing schizophrenia is promising.  Parkinson’s disease, a motor disorder associated with tremors at rest and slow movement, is caused by defective protein folding that causes dopamine producing neurons in the brain’s substantia nigra to die. Addiction is another chronic disease in which dopamine is involved. Medications that help people forget the pleasure of an addictive substance can help treat addiction. Unfortunately, even though drug overdose is a leading cause of death for people under 50, there has been minimal investment in drugs to treat addiction, Kandel laments.

Although memory abilities can be disrupted in several of the disorders Kandel reviews, in dementia memory loss is the primary symptom. Alzheimer’s disease is fundamentally different from age-related memory decline. It is causes by protein misfolding, causing toxic clumps that create neurofibrillary tangles. Our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease, including genetic and health risk factors for developing it, has increased rapidly.

Synthesizing his review of these disorders, Kandel offers insights into our understanding of creativity and consciousness. Creativity has a biological basis in the brain and the capacity for creativity is universal (i.e., not dependent on mental disorders). By reviewing the art of people with various brain disorders Kandel suggests that some of the elements that are important for creativity are perseverance, collaboration, mind-wandering, and combining unrelated elements. As Sigmund Freud argued, unconscious mental work impacts conscious thinking. Disordered minds are revealing that our decisions emerge from our unconscious thoughts, more than from our conscious thoughts.

Kandel concludes with a powerful prediction—that neurology and psychiatry will merge soon into one discipline that examines how genes and environment lead to individual differences in brains and behavior. This field could move us to personalizing medical treatment such that we may be able to prevent the diseases of the brain and mind.

Kandel, E.R. (2018). The Disordered Mind: What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves.New York, NY: Farrar, Strous, and Giroux.

More than any other life stage adolescence is derided and characterized as an unpredictable, turbulent storm. In Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain, University College London cognitive neuroscience professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore argues that we need to stop disparaging adolescence and instead recognize it as a critical time for building identity. Further, we need to support young people in this process. Blakemore explains how adolescents develop socially and neurologically, how that development shapes behavior, and how it impacts who young people will become. Inventing Ourselves will be useful for educators wishing to understand better people who are between puberty and adulthood (roughly ages 12-25) and for developmental psychologists wishing to explore how brain and behavior develop after childhood.

Adolescence is a distinct period of life observable across all human cultures and across numerous animal species. During adolescence most people develop a stable sense of who they are and how they would like to be viewed by others. Identity development is shaped by environment and by some of the social changes that occur during adolescence. For example, adolescents are more likely to engage in social comparison, value others’ opinions, attend to cultural norms, spend less time with parents and more time alone or with friends, experience embarrassment, and wrongly assume others care or notice their own behavior.

Interestingly, the pattern of brain activity that supports the ability to think about oneself changes during adolescence, which may correspond to these behavioral changes. Conversely, social experiences during adolescence can change the brain. For example, social exclusion results in more mood disturbance and anxiety for adolescents than for adults, and isolation during this period can have long lasting impacts on brain structure, hormone levels, and long-term behavior. For adults the effects of isolation on the brain are not as dramatic.

More generally, the brain undergoes substantial change during adolescence. Gray matter volume decreases and white matter volume increases. The prefrontal cortex, an area associated with decision-making, self-control, and self-awareness undergoes substantial, protracted development during adolescence. A network of regions that supports the ability to understand others’ minds undergoes anatomical maturation through early adulthood.

Blakemore also discusses the “mismatch hypothesis” of adolescent brain development. That is, the limbic system, which is involved in reward sensitivity, matures on average earlier than the prefrontal cortex. This mismatch may explain adolescents’ risk-taking because rewards may be especially alluring and self-control may be limited. Importantly, Blakemore notes that there is individual variability in the extent to which a mismatch exists. Although major changes in the brain level off by adulthood, brains can always continue to change with experience.

Adolescence can be a dangerous time. Adolescents’ penchant for risk-taking can lead them to have deadly accidents. Extensive consumption of cannabis and alcohol can reduce cognitive ability later in life and can cause more damage to the brain than an equal amount of consumption in adulthood would cause. Additionally, three-fourths of mental illnesses emerge by the end of adolescence. Fascinating brain research suggests that we may be able to detect differences in young peoples’ brains that would be predictive of whether they will go on to develop mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.

Informed by a body of research about the messages to which adolescents are responsive, Blakemore advises, “if we want to curb certain kinds of risk-taking in young people, it would be a good idea to focus on the immediate, social consequences of actions and decisions rather than, or as well as, delivering earnest warnings about long-term repercussions.” She argues also that mindfulness training might be a way to improve self-control and well-being and reduce mental health issues in adolescents.

Blakemore describes the value of understanding adolescents’ brains and behavior for supporting education. She suggests that adolescents’ proclivity for risk-taking should be harnessed in schools to push adolescents to take intellectual risks. She suggests that high schools should start later so that students are not deprived of sleep. Brain research shows that adolescents’ circadian rhythms are shifted later than adults, and behavioral evidence suggests that adolescents are not sleeping enough. A final suggestion is that in determining punishments for adolescents’ transgressions, we should remember that adolescents have tremendous potential for change, they are biologically disposed to riskiness, and they may be more likely to learn from rewards than from punishments.

Adolescents, more than people at other stages, are creative, passionate, and eager to learn from new people and experiences. All around us there are examples of inspiring young people making an impact in society, overcoming obstacles, and building better lives for themselves and others. We need to honor adolescence for what it is—a time of identity development—and support adolescents because of what they are—our hope and our future.

Blakemore, S.J. (2018). Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain. New York, NY: Public Affairs.