Why We Snap Lib/E: Understanding the Rage Circuit in Your Brain

The startling new science behind sudden acts of violence committed by ordinary, sane people from a leading neurobiologist According to R. Douglas Fields, PhD, we all have a rage circuit we can't fully control once it is engaged. The daily headlines are filled with examples of otherwise rational people with no history of violence or mental illness suddenly snapping in a domestic dispute, barroom brawl, or road rage attack. We all wish to believe that we are in control of our actions, but the fact is, in certain circumstances we are not. Something in our environment can unexpectedly unleash an automatic and complex rage response. Dr. Fields is an internationally recognized neurobiologist and authority on the brain and the cellular mechanisms of memory. He has spent years trying to understand the biological basis of rage and anomalous violence, and he has concluded that our culture's understanding of the problem is based on an erroneous assumption: that rage attacks are the product of morally or mentally defective individuals, rather than a capacity that we all possess. The sad truth is that the right trigger in the right circumstance can unleash a fit of rage in almost anyone. And as Dr. Fields reveals and details for the first time, there are precisely nine triggers. Fields shows that violent behavior is the result of the clash between our evolutionary hardwiring and triggers in our contemporary world. Our personal space is more crowded than ever, we get less sleep, and we just aren't as fit as our ancestors. We need to understand how the hardwiring works and how to recognize the nine triggers. With a totally new perspective, engaging narrative, and practical advice, Why We Snap uncovers the biological roots of the rage response and how we can protect ourselves-and others.

About the Author :
Douglas Fields, PhD, is a neuroscientist and an international authority on nervous system development and plasticity. He received advanced degrees from UC Berkeley, San Jose State University, UC San Diego, and he held postdoctoral fellowships at Stanford and Yale Universities before joining the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Maryland. He is also Adjunct Professor at the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program at the University of Maryland, College Park. He has published over 150 articles in scientific journals and books from his experimental research into how the brain is modified by experience, and the cellular mechanisms of memory. His scientific research has been featured internationally in newspapers, magazines, radio, and television, including the National Geographic, ABC News Nightline, andNPR Morning Edition. His research on nervous system plasticity involving non-neuronal cells (glia) in white matter regions of the brain, is recognized as pioneering a new non-synaptic mechanism of nervous system plasticity. In 2004, he founded the scientific journal Neuron Glia Biology, to advance research on interactions between neurons and glia, and he serves on the editorial boards of several neuroscience journals. In addition to his scientific research, Dr. Fields is author of numerous books and magazine article about the brain written for the general reader, including The Other Brain, about brain cells that communicate without using electricity (glia), and Why We Snap, about the neuroscience of sudden aggression, as well as numerous articles in popular magazines including Outside Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, Scientific American and Scientific American Mind, Time, Undark, Quanta, and on-line columns for The Huffington Post, Psychology Today, Scientific American, the Society for Neuroscience, BrainFacts, and others, and he is scientific advisor to Scientific American Mind. Graham Winton is a television, film, and voice actor who has won the Audie Award for Best Narration. He has appeared on such television shows as Blue Bloods, Law & Order, All My Children, and As the World Turns.