by John Coates
Craig A.D. (2002) How do you feel? Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 3, 655–666. An important review article. A more accessible version of Craig’s work can be found in a recorded lecture: The neuroanatomical basis for human awareness of feelings from the body. Found at http://vimeo.com/8170544
BEHAVIOURAL AND NEURO-ECONOMICS
Hersh Shefrin (2007) Beyond Greed and Fear: Understanding Behavioral Finance and the Psychology of Investing. Oxford University Press. Excellent overview of the field.
Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein (2008) Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Yale University Press. Influential book on how behavioural economics can inform economic policy.
Daniel Kahneman (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. A summary of Kahneman’s work.
Paul Glimcher, Ernst Fehr, Antonio Rangel, Colin Camerer, Russell Poldrack (2009) Neuroeconomics: Decision-Making and the Brain. London: Academic Press.
Camelia Kuhnen, Brian Knutson (2005) The Neural Basis of Financial Decision-Making. Neuron 47, 763–770.
HOMEOSTASIS
Walter Cannon (1932) The Wisdom of the Body. New York: Norton. Dated but well-written masterpiece by the scientist who discovered homeostasis and the fight-or-flight response.
Thomas Amini, Fari Lannon, Richard Lewis (2001) A General Theory of Love. New York: Vintage. Lovely little book on homeostasis and love.
VISUAL SYSTEM AND SPEED OF REACTIONS
Tor Norretranders (1991) The User Illusion. New York: Penguin.
Tom Stafford and Matt Webb (2005) Mind Hacks: Tips and Tools for Using Your Brain. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media. Wonderful, fun book that explains many of the tricks our brain uses to simplify our understanding of the world, and speed up our reactions. Each chapter has an easy experiment you can perform to observe your brain at work.
Stephen Pinker (1999) How the Mind Works. New York: Norton.
Ken Dryden (2003) The Game. New York: Wiley. On conscious and unconscious mind in sport, written by a great athlete.
GUT FEELINGS
Antoine Bechara, Antonio R. Damasio (2005) The somatic marker hypothesis: A neural theory of economic decision. Games and Economic Behavior 52, 336–372.
Timothy Wilson (2002) Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious. Boston: Harvard University Press.
Malcolm Gladwell (2005) Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. New York: Little, Brown.
VAGUS NERVE AND ENTERIC NERVOUS SYSTEM
Stephen Porges (2011) The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. New York: Norton. A collection of articles by the scientist who developed the theory of the vagal brake.
Michael Gershon (1998) The Second Brain. New York: HarperCollins. A highly readable book on the enteric nervous system.
SEARCH
Gregory Berns (2006) Satisfaction: Sensation Seeking, Novelty, and the Science of Finding True Fulfillment. New York: Henry Holt. On dopamine, written in a conversational style.
Donald Pfaff (2005) Brain Arousal and Information Theory: Neural and Genetic Mechanisms. Boston: Harvard University Press. A cutting-edge treatise, written for scientists.
TESTOSTERONE AND IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE
James M. Dabbs (2000) Heroes, Rogues and Lovers: Testosterone and Behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill. An overview of research on testosterone and behaviour.
John Maynard Keynes (1936) ‘The State of Long-Term Expectation’ in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Chapter 12. London: Macmillan. This one chapter in Keynes’s great work is the single best description of exuberance, a must-read.
Robert Shiller (2005) Irrational Exuberance 2nd ed. Princeton University Press.
George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller (2009) Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism. Princeton University Press.
Michael Lewis (1990) Liar’s Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street. New York: Penguin. Still the best description of trading-floor bravado.
David Owen (2008) In Sickness and in Power: Illness in Heads of Government During the Last 100 Years. London: Methuen. An original account of hubris and clinical conditions in political leaders, written by a senior British politician who also happens to be a trained neurologist.
STRESS
Bruce McEwen (2002) The End of Stress as We Know It. Washington: Joseph Henry Press. A review of stress research by one of the greats in the field.
Robert Sapolsky (2004) Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers 3rd ed. New York: Henry Holt. A book that covers all aspects of stress, written by one of the scientists who, together with McEwen, has done so much of the research on stress and the brain.
Robert A. Karasek, Tores Theorell (1992) Healthy Work: Stress, Productivity and the Reconstruction of Working Life. New York: Basic Books.
TOUGHNESS
Dienstbier, R.A. (1989) Arousal and physiological toughness: Implications for mental and physical health. Psychological Review 96, 84–100. The classic article on toughness.
SPORTS SCIENCE
Jack H. Wilmore, David L. Costill (2004) Physiology of Sport and Exercise 3rd ed. Human Kinetics Publishers.
Per-Olof Astrand, Kaare Rodahl, Hans A. Dahl, Sigmund B. Stromme (2003) Textbook of Work Physiology 4th ed. Human Kinetics Publishers.
Frank W. Dick (2007) Sports Training Principles 5th ed. A. & C. Black Publishers Ltd.
MISCELLANEOUS
Brian Brett (2004) Uproar’s Your Only Music. Exile Editions. Lovely, uncategorisable book in which the author tells of growing up with Kallmann syndrome, a rare genetic disorder which left him without testosterone.
Matt Ridley (2004) Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience and What Makes us Human. London: HarperCollins. An overview of the nature/nurture debate.