Changing your mind

A book that's ideal for the non-scientist who wants to know more about why an artistic experience moves them so much.

- MARCUS HOBSON

Your Brain on Art is a perfect book for those who love a good digression. It is full of fascinating asides about how our brains work and what might have an influence on our emotions.

Just from a scan of the chapter headings - Cultivating Well Being, Restoring Mental Health, Healing the Body, Amplifying Learning, and Flourishing - you can see where the book aims its scholarship.

Featuring conversations with artists such as David Byrne, soprano Renée Fleming and evolutionary biologist EO Wilson, the book begins with Anatomy of the Arts. Just before that is a short survey which invites the reader to answer 14 questions to establish their aesthetic appreciation, intense aesthetic experience and creative behaviour. How you respond and how you engage.

Potential readers should note that "art" has a broad definition not simply drawing and painting but words and music, dance and movement, involving a wide range of sensory perceptions.

For instance, an investigation into poetry found that, by using MRI scanning machines, the part of our brain that lit up when listening to poetry was the same as that stimulated by music.