Arvid Carlsson

This book is the first to address the most urgent issues, combining a solid basic research approach with applied individual and stress issues, including interventions. Throughout, the focus is on our latest knowledge about various causes of stress and its neuro-cognitive and biological implications. World-renowned authors from Europe as well as the US describe how stress affects the brain of young people as well as adults. They cover the topic from all perspectives, showing how stress affects life in general, from the societal and organizational level to the individual, organ and molecular level. While the book clearly points out stress as a risk factor to health, it also offers a number of evidence-based methods to cope with stress and even ride the positive energy of stress - both as an individual, as well as what managers can do to create a healthy and productive workplace. Written in a reader-friendly and appealing style, the book provides real-life examples from various laboratories, as well as such events as the Volvo Ocean Race, the largest around-the-globe sailing competition. Essential reading for clinicians and biologists, as well as for a wide range of students, including medicine and public health, but also managers and HR staff. With a Foreword by Nobel Laureate Professor Arvid Carlsson (Medicine 2000).

The rise of modern psychopharmacology following upon the discovery of efficient psychotherapeutic agents in the middle of the previous century has led to a paradigm shift in brain research, based upon the discovery that nerve cells communicate with each other via chemical messengers. Thanks to this discovery (which awarded the author Arvid Carlsson the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology in 2000) new possibilities have opened up to disclose the mechanisms steering our thoughts and emotions and the disturbances underlying neuropsychiatric diseases. Substances influencing our mental life have been used during all times. The increased knowledge of the brain has given us drugs with a more specific action and milder side effects than before. Probably we will also have access to substances with entirely new fields of application, for instance drugs improving memory, learning and creativity. Maybe tomorrow human beings will have a whole arsenal of highly sophisticated substances that are individually tailored to improve their function and well-being. This sounds fantastic but could be a reality in the not too distant future. However, brain research will probably also lead to the evolution of novel non-pharmacological treatments. It will also spur scientists to revisit some of the oldest and most fundamental issues. For instance, where is the mind located? Is there a connection between creativity and madness? Perhaps the last question will be elucidated in light of recent developments in our understanding of the biological evolution. Messengers of the Brain is an introduction to modern neuroscience. In a comprehensible way the authors make the most recent scientific advances accessible to a broad circle of readers.