The Brain

Not every culture has a word for 'fear.' Smiling was an invention of the Middle Ages. There's a lot that will surprise you about the way we process emotions, says the neuroscientist and psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett. Here she picks five books that illustrate our understanding of how emotions work.

The ‘hard problem’ of consciousness – of how the physical matter of the brain produces the psychological phenomenon of consciousness – has dogged psychologists and neuroscientists for decades. But what if we've been posing the question incorrectly all this time? The psychologist Susan Blackmore discusses five key texts that tackle this quicksilver concept.

Neuroscience has banished the problem of dualism—the 'ghost in the machine' mulled over by philosophists since the time of Descartes, says the renowned cognitive neuroscientist Professor Dick Passingham. Here, he chooses five books that signified major breakthroughs in this fast-advancing field.

The human brain contains 86 billion neurons and burns a quarter of our energy intake. But it is by no means extraordinary, says Suzana Herculano-Houzel. Here, the Brazilian neuroscientist chooses five of the best books for understanding the complexities and connectivity of our most enigmatic organ.

Author and psychology professor, Alison Gopnik, tells us what's going on in children’s minds – and that it's a lot more than we may think

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Research Fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL, discusses aspects of the relationship between the mind and the brain. She recommends books on autism, the allure of neuroscience, consciousness and maths

It's hard to understand many things about the world around us without a knowledge of the unconscious workings of the brain, argues the New York Times columnist David Brooks. He chooses five accessible books that'll get you into neuroscience as well.