How risk taking transforms our body chemistry, driving us to extremes of euphoria and risky behavior—or stress and depression

In this eye-opening book, Coates—a former Wall Street trader and now a world-class neuroscientist—describes the role our biology plays in our risk-taking behavior. Coates brings his research to life by telling a story of fictional traders who get caught up in a bubble and then a crash. As these traders place their bets and live with the results, Coates looks inside their bodies to describe the physiology driving them into irrational exuberance and then pessimism. The result is a riveting tale and a penetrating insight into how traders'—and indeed all humans'—bodies guide their risk taking, endowing them with fast reactions and gut feelings; but how their biology can also lead them to extremes of euphoria or anxiety and stress, thereby wreaking havoc on the economy. Coates extends his conclusions to all types of high-pressure decision making—from the sports field to the battlefield.