Where	ZOOM EVENT: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_3Nhj8XffShafvU970VC6cQ
When	February 19, 2024 @1:00PM EST (notice special time!)
Organization/Sponsor	Harvard Division of Science, Harvard Library, and Harvard Book Store
Speaker(s)	Camilla Nord (U Cambridge)
Cost	Free admission
Contact Info	science_lectures@fas.harvard.edu

There are many routes to mental wellbeing and award-winning neuroscientist Camilla Nord is at the forefront of finding them. In this ground-breaking book, 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.

In The Balanced Brain, Nord 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 and medication to recreational drugs and electrical brain stimulation, to show how they work, and why they sometimes don't. In doing so, she reveals how the small things we do to lift our mood during the course of a day - a piece of chocolate, a coffee, chatting to a friend - often work on the same pathways in our brain as the latest pharmacological treatments for mental health disorders. Whether they help us to manage pain, learn from experience or expend energy on the things that are important for our survival, these conscious actions are part of a complex process that is unique to each individual and the constant backdrop to our everyday lives.

Nord shows that, with so many factors at play, there are more possibilities for recovery and resilience than we might think. Whether you're suffering or simply doing your best to stay afloat, this book is an invitation to discover what makes each of us feel better, and why.
_______________________

Camilla Nord leads the Mental Health Neuroscience Lab at the University of Cambridge. Her research has been featured in the New Statesman, the Daily Mail and the British Journal of Psychiatry, and on the BBC.

For more information and videos of Harvard Science Book Talks, see https://science.fas.harvard.edu/book-talks.