THE BALANCED BRAIN - The Science of Mental Health

There are many routes to mental wellbeing and award-winning neuroscientist Camilla Nord is at the forefront of finding them. In her ground-breaking new book, The Balanced Brain, she offers a revelatory tour of the scientific and technological developments that are revolutionizing the way we think about mental health, showing why and how events - and treatments - can affect people in such different ways.

Camilla reframes mental health as an intricate, self-regulating process, one which is different for all of us. She examines a huge diversity of treatments, from therapy to Medic*tion, to show how they work, and why they sometimes don't.
Nord shows that, with so many factors at play, there are more possibilities for recovery and resilience than we might think. This book is an invitation to discover those pathways, in order to help us identify what makes each of us feel better - and why.

Camilla Nord will be In Conversation with Prof. Hugo Critchley from the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, discussing her new book The Balanced Brain, which will be available to purchase on the night.

• DOORS OPEN : 18:30
• TALK STARTS : 19:00
• AUDIENCE Q&A : 20:00
• BOOK SIGNING : 20:30

AUTHOR Biography
Camilla Nord read Physiology, Psychology, and Philosophy at Magdalen College, Oxford, before completing a PhD in Neuroscience at University College London. She is the Assistant Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and also leads the Mental Health Neuroscience programme of research at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge. Her new book 'The Balanced Brain: The Science of Mental Health' was published in Sept 2023 and is due out in paperback on the 12th Sept 2024.

CHAIR Biography
Prof. Hugo Critchley is Foundation Chair of Psychiatry at Brighton and Sussex Medical School and co-director of the Sackler/Sussex Centre of Consciousness Science .
Hugo trained in Physiology and Medicine in the University of Liverpool and received his doctorate in Psychological Studies at the University of Oxford. He was a principal investigator at the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, UCL Institute of Neurology and group leader at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Reviews for The Balanced Brain:

"Excellent . . . anyone reading it will come away with a kinder, better understanding of themselves"
-Lucy Foulkes

"A fascinating read, one that is able tomake sense of unexpected connections . . . Nord makes a compelling case for rejecting any clear distinction between mental and physical illness"
-Sophie McBain, The Times
"Compelling, revolutionary, compassionate . . .sharp-witted and intelligent. . . both down-to-earth and insightful . . . Nord provides an understanding of the brain which readers can leverage to conduct their ownmental-health enhancing experiments"
-Niamh Jimenez, The Irish Times
"Engaging,refreshingly open and fair-minded . . . Explains how our brains come to experience the world as they do, considering pain, pleasure, the mind-body connection and how events shape our outlook"
-Pippa Bailey, New Statesman

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