Medicine & Health Sciences

The Invisible Brain Injury recounts, in her own words, the experience of Aurora Lassaletta, a clinical psychologist who suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) after a traffic accident. Presenting her unique dual perspective as both a patient and a clinician, Aurora highlights the less visible cognitive, emotional and behavioural symptoms common to acquired brain injury (ABI).

This moving account showcases Aurora’s growing awareness of her impairments, their manifestation in daily life, how they are perceived, or not, by others and the tools that helped her survive. Each chapter combines Aurora’s perspective with the scientific view of a professional neuropsychologist or physiatrist who provide commentaries on her various symptoms.

This book is valuable reading for professionals involved in neurorehabilitation and clinical neuropsychology and for clinical psychology students. It is a must read for ABI survivors, those around them and clinicians, who are all an essential part of the rehabilitation, adjustment and acceptance process involved with ABI.

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What is really happening in your brain when you use your phone, and how to harness it.

Humans are often fearful of the day the world will be ruled by machines, but have they not already taken over? The average person spends 4-5 hours a day on their phone, about a third of the time they are awake. We self-interrupt our work and social lives, forgo sleep, procrastinate important tasks and opt for digital distraction when we’re bored or feel uncomfortable.

NHS neurology doctor and neuroscientist Faye Begeti describes what is happening in our brain when we use our phones and why we have formed so many fixed and negative habits around them. She reflects on both deliberate choices and automatic behaviours, whilst also challenging myths around digital ‘addiction’, how dopamine actually works and the harmfulness of blue light.

Rather than recommending a quick fix digital diet, or total abstinence – unviable for most people – The Phone Fix offers a practical guide, based on neuroscientific techniques, on building supportive digital habits. Technology is not inherently bad or frightening and by better understanding what is happening in our brains, we can replenish our willpower and improve our focus, forming a healthier relationship with our phones ­- and therefore the real people around us.

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Athletes routinely use psychological skills and interventions for performance enhancement but, perhaps surprisingly, not always to assist in recovery from injury. This book demonstrates the ways in which athletes and practitioners can transfer psychological skills to an injury and rehabilitation setting, to enhance recovery and the well-being of the athlete.

Drawing on the very latest research in sport and exercise psychology, this book explores key psychological concepts relating to injury, explaining typical psychological responses to injury and psychological aspects of rehabilitation. Using case studies in every chapter to highlight the day-to-day reality of working with injured athletes, it introduces a series of practical interventions, skills and techniques, underpinned by an evidence-base, with a full explanation of how each might affect an athlete’s recovery from injury.

The Psychology of Sport Injury and Rehabilitation emphasises the importance of an holistic, multi-disciplinary approach to sports injury and rehabilitation. No other book examines the psychological aspects of both sports injury and the rehabilitation process, and therefore this is an essential resource for students, scholars and practitioners working in sport psychology, sports therapy, sports medicine or coaching.

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• Over 180 practice questions
• Worked solutions provided by more than a dozen consultants
• Hints and tips for making the most of your interview, and getting the results you want.

“What would you do if you were in charge of the NHS?”
“What is a clinical trial?”
“Why wouldn’t we choose more qualified candidates than you?”

These are examples of Real Questions that were asked in previous medical consultant interviews. Stumped? You don’t need to be! Published by the Oxbridge Medical Society, the Ultimate Medical Consultant Interview Guide contains over 180 commonly asked Interview Questions that have been asked at real consultant interviews. It provides Fully Worked Model Answers for every single question and guides you through the topics and problems that each one raises.

With contributions and advice from over 12 Senior NHS Consultants , this is your Ultimate companion to the Consultant Interview Process and a MUST-BUY for those who have an upcoming medical consultant interview.

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Legendary record producer-turned-brain scientist explains why you fall in love with music.

‘Extraordinary insights about music, emotion and the brain…An instant classic’ Daniel Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music

This Is What It Sounds Like is a journey into the science and soul of music. It’s also the story of a musical trailblazer who began as a humble audio tech in L.A. to become Prince’s chief engineer for Purple Rain and one of the most successful female record producers of all time.

Now an award-winning professor of cognitive neuroscience, Dr Susan Rogers takes readers behind the scenes of record-making and leads us to musical self-awareness. She explains that everyone possesses a unique ‘listener profile’, shows how being musical can mean actively listening, and encourages us to think about the records that define us. Lively and illuminating, this book will refresh your playlists, deepen your connection to artists, and change the way you listen to music.

‘Superb… this book can show you how to be a better listener’ Times Literary Supplement

‘A provocative blend of studio stories and fascinating neuroscience’ Alan Light, author of Let’s Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain

‘Fizzing with energy and insight…a crucial addition to the canon of music must-reads’ Kate Hutchinson

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THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR NEW NETFLIX SERIES, HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND

‘It’s a trip – engrossing, eye-opening, mind altering’ New Statesman

‘Fascinating. Pollan is the perfect guide … curious, careful, open minded’ The Guardian

Of all the many things humans rely on plants for, surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate, calm, or completely alter the qualities of our mental experience. In This Is Your Mind On Plants, Michael Pollan explores three very different drugs – opium, caffeine and mescaline – and throws the fundamental strangeness of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs, while consuming (or in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants, and the equally powerful taboos.

In a unique blend of history, science, memoir and reportage, Pollan shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively. In doing so, he proves that there is much more to say about these plants than simply debating their regulation, for when we take them into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can. This ground-breaking and singular book holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds and our entanglement with the natural world.

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Chosen by the SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, FT and DAILY MAIL as one of their BEST SUMMER BOOKS OF 2023

‘If you only read one diet or nutrition book in your life, make it this one’ Bee Wilson

‘A devastating, witty and scholarly destruction of the shit food we eat and why’ Adam Rutherford

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An eye-opening investigation into the science, economics, history and production of ultra-processed food.

It’s not you, it’s the food.

We have entered a new ‘age of eating’ where most of our calories come from an entirely novel set of substances called Ultra-Processed Food, food which is industrially processed and designed and marketed to be addictive. But do we really know what it’s doing to our bodies?

Join Chris in his travels through the world of food science and a UPF diet to discover what’s really going on. Find out why exercise and willpower can’t save us, and what UPF is really doing to our bodies, our health, our weight, and the planet (hint: nothing good).

For too long we’ve been told we just need to make different choices, when really we’re living in a food environment that makes it nigh-on impossible. So this is a book about our rights. The right to know what we eat and what it does to our bodies and the right to good, affordable food.

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We all know that as a nation our mental health is in crisis. But what most don’t know is that a critical ingredient in this debate, and a crucial part of the solution – what we eat – is being ignored.

Nutrition has more influence on what we feel, who we become and how we behave than we could ever have imagined. It affects everything from our decision-making to aggression and violence. Yet mental health disorders are overwhelmingly treated as ‘mind’ problems as if the physical brain – and how we feed it – is irrelevant. Someone suffering from depression is more likely to be asked about their relationship with their mother than their relationship with food.

In this eye-opening and impassioned book, psychologist Kimberley Wilson draws on startling new research – as well as her own work in prisons, schools and hospitals around the country – to reveal the role of food and nutrients in brain development and mental health: from how the food a woman eats during pregnancy influences the size of her baby’s brain, and hunger makes you mean; to how nutrient deficiencies change your personality.

We must also recognise poor nutrition as a social injustice, with the poorest and most vulnerable being systematically ignored. We need to talk about what our food is doing to our brains. And we need decisive action, not over rehearsed soundbites and empty promises, from those in power – because if we don’t, things can only get worse.

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We all know that as a nation our mental health is in crisis. But what most don’t know is that a critical ingredient in this debate, and a crucial part of the solution – what we eat – is being ignored.

Nutrition has more influence on what we feel, who we become and how we behave than we could ever have imagined. It affects everything from our decision-making to aggression and violence. Yet mental health disorders are overwhelmingly treated as ‘mind’ problems as if the physical brain – and how we feed it – is irrelevant. Someone suffering from depression is more likely to be asked about their relationship with their mother than their relationship with food.

In this eye-opening and impassioned book, psychologist Kimberley Wilson draws on startling new research – as well as her own work in prisons, schools and hospitals around the country – to reveal the role of food and nutrients in brain development and mental health: from how the food a woman eats during pregnancy influences the size of her baby’s brain, and hunger makes you mean; to how nutrient deficiencies change your personality.

We must also recognise poor nutrition as a social injustice, with the poorest and most vulnerable being systematically ignored. We need to talk about what our food is doing to our brains. And we need decisive action, not over rehearsed soundbites and empty promises, from those in power – because if we don’t, things can only get worse.

Read more