title: The Other Side of Normal: How Biology Is Providing the Clues to Unlock the Secrets of Normal and Abnormal Behavior
author: Jordan Smoller
description: Enlisting research in evolutionary biology, genetics, and psychology, along with advances in molecular neuroscience and neuroimaging, Harvard psychiatrist Smoller redefines the biology of normal. Genetic variation, natural selection, environment, and unique individual experiences coalesce in molding our social and emotional selves. He considers the neural basis of social cognition, empathy, and even love, both the romantic and maternal varieties. Smoller maps out the biology of disgust, resiliency, and fear and then correlates these phenomena with anatomical areas of the brainthe insula, hippocampus, and amygdala, respectively. We learn that our memories get resculpted. And that oxytocin, a peptide hormone consisting of a measly nine amino acids, works like a love potion in women and also stimulates trust. In the fetching chapter The Brain of the Beholder: Beauty and Sexual Attraction, we find out that evolution seems to favor symmetrical facial features and statistically middling appearances rather than an exotic visage. In the worlds of psychiatry and neuroscience, normal is hardly average nor necessarily an ideal state but, rather, a landscape of human possibility. --Tony Miksanek
zlib_text: THE OTHER SIDE OF
  
   **NORMAL**
  
  HOW BIOLOGY IS PROVIDING THE  
  CLUES TO UNLOCK THE SECRETS  
  OF NORMAL AND ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR
  
  JORDAN SMOLLER
  
  ![](Images/image00309.jpeg)
  
  Dedication
  
   _For Ava_
  
   **Contents**
  
  Dedication
  
  Prologue
  
  Chapter One - “We’re All Mad Here”
  
  Chapter Two - How Genes Tune the Brain: The Biology of Temperament
  
  Chapter Three - Blind Cats and Baby Einsteins: The Biology of Nurture
  
  Chapter Four - Dogs, Poker, and Autism: The Biology of Mind Reading
  
  Chapter Five - “Sole Mates”: The Biology of Attachment and Trust
  
  Chapter Six - The Brain of the Beholder: Beauty and Sexual Attraction
  
  Chapter Seven - Remembering to Forget
  
  Chapter Eight - The New Normal
  
  Acknowledgments
  
  Sources
  
  Index
  
  About the Author
  
  Credits
  
  Copyright
  
  About the Publisher
  
  PROLOGUE
  
  >  _. . . [The] intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations which
  > are too obtrusively and too palpably self-evident._
  
   _—E_ _DGAR_ _A_ _LLAN_ _P_ _OE_ _, “T_ _HE_ _P_ _URLOINED_ _L_ _ETTER”_
  
  EVERY 