Sifts fact from fiction in the epidemic of chatter about the brain, providing an up-to-date overview of where the science actually stands.

Nowadays, everything, or almost everything, seems to get ascribed to our brains. Happiness, misery, our personalities and consumption habits, our ability or lack thereof to change – whether individually or collectively – all these are said to be hardwired by interactions among our neurons. From the personal to the political, it all comes down to the brain… even if that requires shortcuts, approximations, and even untruths that distort and betray precisely what neuroscientists are actually saying.