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Kids high on sugar? Nope, just one of many misconceptions (Image: Nico Hermann/Plainpicture)

From neuromarketing to kids high on sugar, it鈥檚 easy to get simplistic about how our brains work, argues Christian Jarrett in Great Myths of the Brain

THESE days you can鈥檛 go to a children鈥檚 birthday party without one of the adults making a knowing comment about the excited scamps being 鈥渉igh on sugar鈥�. In fact, there鈥檚 no evidence that sugar makes children hyperactive. But the remark illustrates the way false beliefs about how our brains work permeate most aspects of life 鈥� as does the burgeoning of buzzwords like neuromarketing or neuroleadership.

Such 鈥渘eurobollocks鈥�, to borrow the title of a , is ably and entertainingly demolished by Christian Jarrett in Great Myths of the Brain. As a journalist in this field, I thought I would know most of these myths, but there was plenty here that was new and interesting to me.

Baroness Susan Greenfield鈥檚 unscientific scaremongering about computers harming our brains (maybe even linked to a rise in autism spectrum disorders) has been . But it鈥檚 still satisfying to read such a well researched rebuttal. What evidence there is in this field tends to show the opposite of what she鈥檚 claiming, writes Jarrett.

Why are there so many myths about the brain? Perhaps because of the growing awareness that this 鈥渢hree pounds of meaty head sponge鈥�, as Jarrett calls it, is what makes us who we are. So the lure of simplistic explanations for the way we think, feel and behave can be irresistible, not only to newspapers and TV, but at times to academic journals, the researchers concerned and, yes, New 杏吧原创 too.

My only quibble with this book is that some of the subject matter took some massaging to fit the myth-debunking format. That said, it was usually an excuse to veer into interesting territory. Whether myth or fact, the science of the meaty head sponge will always be a draw.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淭oo simple minds鈥�