Newsroom

Our brains are the basis of who we are our intellect, our personality, and our emotional states. At the same time, diseases of the brain rank at the top of the list of our most serious health problems, accounting for more long-term care and chronic suffering than all other medical problems put together. Thus, researchers have long sought to learn more about how the brain works, and how to treat a myriad of brain-related disorders from Alzheimer's to Parkinson's, from multiple sclerosis to stroke; from traumatic brain injury to spinal cord injury, and from depression to pain. For the first time, a single, comprehensive home reference, The DANA Guide to Brain Health, is making all of their discoveries accessible to the lay public, along with practical, hands-on advice.

Co-edited by Dr. Flint Beal, Chairman of Neurology and Neuroscience at NewYork Weill Cornell Medical Center, and with an introduction by William Safire, The DANA Guide to Brain Health is a collaboration among more than 100 of the country's most distinguished scientists and medical professionals.

Full of fresh discoveries that have been made possible by the latest technological breakthroughs, this complete family medical health guide for the brain serves as a ready reference to the scientific community's latest understandings of brain function and diseases. At the same time, it offers abundant information and advice that readers can put to use in their own lives.

This remarkable volume is divided into four easy-to-follow sections. These are:

• Conditions of the Brain and Nervous System Exploring seventy-two major diseases and illnesses, such as depression, eating disorders, Parkinson's disease, migraines, Alzheimer's disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, and stroke including the latest discoveries, symptoms, and treatments. Included in this section are early warning signs for strokes; tips for coping with depression; advice for helping someone with obsessive compulsive disorder; guidelines for avoiding lyme disease; and a variety of headache treatments including relaxation training, guided imagery, biofeedback, and acupuncture.
• Understanding Your Brain Explaining how to think about the brain, how researchers have come to know what they do, the best steps for taking care of the brain, and the connection between brain health and body health. In this section, for example, the authors discuss the connections between diet and brain health; how stress affects the brain; and the latest thinking on cellular phones and brain cancer.
• Your Brain Through Life Explaining the brain's development and what it is able to do, from the prenatal period and childhood through adolescence and adulthood. Among the topics addressed here are the importance of folic acid during pregnancy for healthy prenatal brain development; how babies learn to see; how hormonal changes during adolescence challenge the brain system; and how the brain changes with age.
• The Healthy Brain Describing how the brain works throughout the body, from sensing the outside world to regulating breathing and blood flow, and from recognizing pain to how humans can learn, remember, imagine, and create. In this section, the authors explain how the brain coordinates movement and balance; the physiology and psychology of pain; and where temperament comes from, among many other subjects.

The DANA Guide to Brain Health includes handy cross-references indicating where to turn in the book for additional information. For example, one might be reading about how one-year-olds learn to mimic sounds and eventually string words into sentences, and then follow the cross-reference to the chapter about speech, language, and reading. Moreover, with a comprehensive glossary, informative diagrams and charts, and a listing of additional resources including support groups, literature, and volunteer opportunities, this practical volume provides all the information anyone could need, whatever brain-related condition he or she faces.

It has become increasingly apparent that, like it or not, the brain and nervous system are involved in every aspect of our health, write the editors. With the aid of new tools and technologies, researchers now know more about the brain than ever before. And with The DANA Guide to Brain Health, this information and its many practical applications are available to the general public.

Dr. Flint Beal, who is also Neurologist-in-Chief at Weill Cornell Medical Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, is an internationally recognized authority on neurodegenerative disorders. He is the co-author of more than 300 scientific articles and more than 100 books, book chapters, and reviews. He serves on the editorial boards of seven journals, including the Journal of Neurochemistry, Annals of Neurology, Journal of Molecular Neuroscience, Experimental Neurology, and Neurobiology of Disease. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors.

Along with Dr. Beal, the book is co-edited by Dr. Floyd E. Bloom of The Scripps Research Institute and Dr. David J. Kupfer of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.2452685pubkebloom&&13:50- 3- 2-2005jvb900115:01- 8- 3-200402_14_03