Name: Madness and the Brain
Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)
ISBN: 9780070595200

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Madness and the Brain

Solomon H. Snyder

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This book is about insanity, or "madness," and what goes on in the brain of a severely disturbed person. When most people speak of insanity, madness, or psychosis they are thinking of individuals with a loss of contact with reality; individuals whose thought processes are fragmented, convoluted, and awesome; people who hear voices and utter unworldly declarations and prophecies. In speaking of madness, the general public is referring to an illness which organized psychiatry has come to call "schizophrenia." Dr. Snyder describes schizophrenia, a remarkable disease which affects at least one percent—and perhaps up to ten percent—of the world's population. He traces the new scientific breakthroughs in research on brain function and the effects of drugs upon the brain—tying together what is known of symptoms, how drugs which "cure" schizophrenia act in the brain, and how drugs which mimic the disease alter the mind—giving us an ambitious and profound book which may suggest the most innovative way of thinking about mental illness since Sigmund Freud. Dr. Snyder describes schizophrenia, a remarkable disease which affects at least one percent—and perhaps up to ten percent—of the world's population. He traces the new scientific breakthroughs in research on brain function and the effects of drugs upon the brain—tying together what is known of symptoms, how drugs which "cure" schizophrenia act in the brain, and how drugs which mimic the disease alter the mind—giving us an ambitious and profound book which may suggest the most innovative way of thinking about mental illness since Sigmund Freud.

295 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974