Neuroscientist, Author
Stephan Guyenet is an American neuroscientist and obesity researcher who earned his PhD in neuroscience at the University of Washington. His book The Hungry Brain explores how the brain's reward and appetite circuits drive overeating.
by Stephan Guyenet
Guyenet argues that obesity is a brain problem, not a willpower problem, mapping how the lipostat, reward circuitry, and food-cue learning conspire to defend a higher body-fat set point in modern food environments. He integrates neuroscience with evolutionary biology to show why hyperpalatable foods hijack ancient appetite machinery.
The books Stephan Guyenet references, cites, and recommends most frequently.
by Daniel Kahneman
Kahneman reveals that our minds run on two systems: fast intuition and slow deliberation. Most errors in judgement come from trusting System 1 when the situation demands System 2's careful analysis.
by Robert Sapolsky
Sapolsky traces every human behaviour, from aggression to empathy, through biology, from the millisecond before an act back to evolutionary pressures millions of years ago.
by Randolph M. Nesse
Nesse applies Darwinian thinking to medicine, arguing symptoms like fever and anxiety are evolved defenses, not malfunctions. Evolution explains why we're vulnerable to disease.
by Kelly McGonigal
McGonigal reframes willpower as a trainable skill rooted in self-awareness, not a fixed trait. Understanding the biology of impulse and stress gives practical leverage over cravings.
Who Stephan draws from, and who draws from Stephan — aggregated across every book in this collection. Counts show the number of citation links, not the depth of each one.