Caffeine

This natural, cultural, and artistic history of our favourite mood enhancer tells us more, by looking at how caffeine was discovered, its early uses, and its unexpected role in medicine, religion, painting, poetry, learning and love.

Coffee, Tea, Chocolate and the Brain analyzes current research findings on caffeine compounds and their interaction with the brain and central nervous system. The book discusses the effects of coffee, tea, and chocolate on memory, cognitive performance, Parkinson's disease, stroke, oxidative stress, headache and sleep disorders, addiction dependence, and more. It also explores the relationships between caffeine and seizures, blood flow, headaches, alertness, and cravings. With contributions from world experts in this field, this reference will be of great interest to all students and researchers of nutrition, psychology, neuroscience, pharmacology, and other health related sciences.

The Cultural History of Plants is the most important book published on the spread and exploitation of plants in over a century. Written by acknowledged experts in their fields, this valuable reference will be useful for both scholars and general readers. It is both botanical and cultural, describing the role of plants in social life, regional customs, the arts and natural landscapes. There are over 1000 plant entries in the form of concise histories, 200 maps, and 600 black and white illustrations. The A to Z entries cover food and flowering plants as well as those used for textiles, perfume and drugs, and include bibliographic information. Appendices include lists of protected species, plant collection sites, a glossary and a chronology of plant migration.

This volume promotes engineering psychophysiology as a discipline and demonstrates its value to a new audience who we hope will consist of ergonomists, human factors psychologists, and engineers. The editors use a broad definition of what constitutes engineering, including all aspects of the fields known as human engineering, industrial engineering, and safety and systems engineering. The two goals for the volume are reflected in the subtitle. The Issues section introduces the components critical for the successful application of psychophysiological methods to problems in engineering. The chapters are intended to provide an introduction for the reader who is unfamiliar with psychophysiology and to provide the newcomer to the discipline with an overview of the basic theoretical, measurement, instrumentation, and experimental design questions inherent in the use of psychophysiological methods. The Applications section illustrates the many ways that psychophysiological methods are already being used in engineering applications. A broad definition of application is used to include laboratory and simulation research, as well as field studies, and all of the chapters address questions that are relevant for applying psychophysiological methods in the field. The editor's intent is to stimulate investigators to use these methods in new problem areas; therefore, the content of the chapters varies widely, from reviewing specific psychophysiological measures to reviewing work performed on specific engineering problems.