Magnificent Mind at Any Age: Natural Ways to Unleash Your Brain's Maximum Potential

Amazing read on brain health, something that we often take for granted. Defines all six types of ADD with lots of information on natural remedies.

Great, easily readable book about the parts of the brain and their function. What is nice is that Dr. Amen does refer to patients he has done brain scans on and what was shown. His narrative is easily written for the layperson. His recommendations take into account holistic and naturopathic remedies, as well as life style changes and prescription medication. Something for the sick and the healthy in this book.

The author, Dr. Amen, is a psychiatrist who conceived the idea of scanning the brain electronically in search of the physical cause of the mental symptoms he observes in his practice. He also treats the brain in a physical sense by recommending proper diet, sleep habits, etc. in support of brain health. Specific regimens are given for some common psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, insommia, etc. A behavior check list is provided to help the reader identify a particular disorder present and in some cases, this is associated with a particular part of the brain.

Asperger's Syndrome is not one of the particular conditions mentioned. However by comparing the check list to check list for Asperger's Syndrome, it is possible to make a good show more guess as to the parts of the brain having defects responsible for Asperger's. The most obvious are the cerebellum as responsible for the physical clumsyness and the anterior cingulate gyrus as responsible for the social ineptude and tendancy to focus on particular mental activities.
It would certainly be very beneficial to see brain scans of Aspies (persons with Asperger's Sydrome) analyzed with that condition in mind. Any suggestions?

In the latter part of the book the author describes some of his cases and the remedy he used on each. One case involves a young boy, who even though he had often said he wanted to go to Disney World, threw an hours long tantrum when he parents surprised him by taking him there on his birthday. When asked by Dr. Amen if he liked to go there, the reply was "I like Disney World and have no idea why I flipped out". The doctor immediatly diagnosed Asperger's, but in this case supplied no remedy! It is remarkable ( and typical ) that this boy could talk about his brain defects as if they belonged to sombody else. He sees himself from outside and this is what differentiates Asperger's from other forms of autism.

An Internet search on Amen clinic turns up many complaints that Amen is a scam. Since brain scaning for psychiatric problems is a new idea, one would expect that it would meet with much sceptisim. Indeed, Amen relates that shortly after he started using brain scans, he was brought before medical boards as a possible quack, like a phrenologist, but now this has died out and he says he is respected in medical circles. I read some of the complaints on the net and all except one did not give any specifics of problems with Amen or his diagnosises. That one cited a cost of $3500 as exhorbitant, but this is typical for psychiatric treatment of any substantial problem such as drug addiction. Parts of this book concerned with diet and the technical description of the scanner indicate that Amen is quite knowledgeable and not likely to be a quack.

One (real) problem with this book is that the black and white images of the brain scans, show very little difference between different brains with different defects. However on the Amen clinic web site, there is a collection of color coded scans corresponding to different intensity of the physical activity in different parts of the brain. These show substantial differences between different brains. Black and white versions of these images would show little difference since the different colors are all present at the same intensity. This is probably the way the book images were made and that would account for their inadequate contrast.

In summary, although there are caution signals, this book is worth reading for any person with behavior or mental problems, of themselves, or their loved ones. show less

Dr. Amen provides a new way of thinking about your brain and your optimum functioning. Most eye-opeing is his discussionof how unrecognized brain injuries and problems with brain functioning affect everything else; it makes sense, of course, since we are talking about the brain, but this book puts this new brain research into easy to understand langauge. He breaks down the parts ot he brain and the functions they control, what the symptoms of problems with that area are, and specirfic suggestions for diet, exercise, natural treatmenets, supplemements, and pharmaceuticals to try. Teh sections on ADHD are particularly in depth.