Brain scans reveal our thoughts, memories even our moods as clearly as an X-ray reveals our bones. We can watch a person's brain literally light up as it registers a joke, or glow dully when it recalls an unhappy memory.

Mapping The Mind shows how these cans can be used to help explain aspects of our behaviour and how behavioural eccentricities can be traced to abnormalities in an individual brain. Dyslexia, for example, may be caused by a short-circuit in the messages converting sound to visual cues; addiction, eating disorders and alcoholism stem from dysfunction in the brain's reward system.

In this acclaimed book Rita Carter draws on the latest in brain imaging to give extraordinary insights into how the brain works.

'One of the clearest and best-illustrated attempts to explain the virtually inaccessible, the brain.' - Sunday Times.