The Mind and Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley

 Neuroplasticity implies that the brain can change. It was thought that was not possible as an adult, but the author has worked with OCD patients who have showed it is possible. He gives other examples. A girl, through rigorous practice became an excellent pianist, suddenly found her fingers not working. She went to many doctors until one found the problem that her fingers were making only one imprint on the brain instead of individual imprints for each finger. Her rapid playing trained the brain to respond to the fingers as a group. She was able to retrain the brain be playing slowly.

Another example involved dyslexia where sufferers find difficulty reading. What was found was that it was a matter of the sound being too fast for some to recognized. In the sound 'baa' the 'b' is too fast for some and all they hear is the '..aa'. They retrained by slowing down the sound to make the 'b' sound longer and gradually speeding it up as the client handled it so that eventually normal processing was possible.

Tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, reflects that a tone has taken over more of the neighboring regions so patients should attend to and discriminate acoustic stimuli that are near the frequency of the tinnitus tone to drive the cortical reorganization of the non-tinnitus frequencies into the representation of the tinnitus tone.

Chapter 9, Free Will and Free Won't discusses the impact of volition. The author's OCD patients willfully select alternative actions. William James had come close to formulating a persuasive, scientifically based theory of how intention reifies intention. The author calls mental force the mechanism that allows volition to be physically efficacious. He proposes that metal force is a physical force generated by mental effort. Directed mental effort causes measurable changed in brain function. And mental effort is not reducible to brain action. The "free won't" version of volition refers to the minds veto power over brain generated urges. For James will derives not from the freedom to initiate thoughts, but to focus on and select some while stifling or blocking others

Eye opening possibilities have been shown.

This is Your Brain on Parasites: How tiny creatures manipulate our behavior and shape society by Kathleen McAuliffe

 Parasites are masters of mind control. One parasite convinces mice to be friendly to cats and of course they get eaten, putting the parasites where they want to be, inside of a cat. These same parasites can affect humans who get infected by changing cat litter or playing in an infected sandbox, for example. Infected humans take more risks making them inferior drivers for example.

Studies have shown that in geographic regions more susceptible to parasites, people have more authoritarian governments and associate in smaller groups which favor known individuals. Prejudice increases due to fear of the unknown health of those not part of the known group.

This is an eye-opening read. Very interesting.