A book on the teenage brain has scooped a major science book prize.
Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain was written by neuroscientist Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore.
It won this year’s Royal Society Insight Investment Science Books Prize, from a shortlist of six.
The author details how stressful experiences during her formative years may have shaped her own development.
Her father, scientist Sir Colin Blakemore, was one of Britain’s most high-profile advocates of medical experiments on animals.
After he received death threats from animal rights groups, the family had to live under police protection.
Prof Blakemore also discusses her own laboratory research into how the brain develops during adolescence to shape the adults we become.
The £25,000 prize celebrates outstanding popular science books from around the world.
Last year’s winning book, Testosterone Rex by Cordelia Fine, looked at gender stereotypes.
Judges said that this year’s winning title tackled a “neglected area that affects every one of us” and is a “completely captivating read”.
