So, you have a hankering to find out more about how your brain works but you don't fancy reading a dry old book on the subject? For £9.99 you can get your hands on Secrets of the Mind and spend a few happy hours trawling through the content that spans two CD-ROMs.

And what a lot of content there is, all wrapped up around a range of topics and themes you access from a rather nicely designed main screen. For example, there is a topic called 'Modules of the Brain' which covers areas including naming the different parts of the brain, phrenology and how language works in the brain.

This section includes a video of the brain growing in the womb displayed at a speed of one week per second. I hate to think how that was actually obtained (probably far less squeamishly than I would imagine) but it is fascinating. Other topics cover areas like memory, neural networks, consciousness and the unconscious and forgetting.

Each of the topics is actually a 'talk' given by one of the experts and your best bet for getting the maximum out of them is to watch each from beginning to end. The urge to flip around and watch videos or go to little sub-sections of information is strong, though, and there are often opportunities to branch out in more than one direction. At least the software has a 'back' button so you can retrace your steps easily enough.

If the idea of sitting back and having a CD show you its wares seems dull, then there are a few games that you can use to help illustrate certain principles. You come across these as you work through the CD. And there is an index, so you can look up specifics.

It is a pity that the talks are all given by men, and mostly they are American. Surely there is a more mixed range of academics and other experts to choose from, in terms of both gender and nationality. And there is a lot of video of these guys standing in front of blackboards, or sitting on chairs and holding forth. I can't help wondering if they could present their information in a more engaging way. This is a bit of a let-down as the graphics in general are impressive.

On a more practical note, I found a fair amount of disk-swapping was needed when I took the 'flit about' approach to exploring. There is less changing of CDs needed if you use the software in a linear fashion and work through its topics one at a time.

There is some fairly good multimedia and generally neat graphics here, and the information content is certainly educational. But the talks are rather dry in places.