The Playful Brain

Despite hundreds of years of research and theorizing, questions concerning play behaviour, such as what qualifies as play, what brain mechanisms are needed to produce play, and of what benefit, if any, does play have to our lives, remain unanswered. Over time, biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and educators have generated more opinions than solid evidence with play vacillating between being seen as instrumental to the development of healthy individuals and as a childish waste of time. With reference to a range of species, but using the trusty rat as their model, the authors synthesize three decades of empirical research to create the first truly integrated study that appreciates the significance of such previously neglected phenomena as the multi-functionality of play, the different forms of play that exist between species, and the evolutionary aspects that are responsible for it all.