How the Self Controls Its Brain is a book by Sir John Eccles, proposing a theory of philosophical dualism, and offering a justification of how there can be mind-brain action without violating the principle of the conservation of energy.

Eccles calls the fundamental neural units of the cerebral cortex "dendrons ", and proposes that each of the 40 million dendrons is linked with a mental unit, or "psychon ", representing a unitary conscious experience. In willed actions and thought, psychons act on dendrons and, for a moment, increase the probability of the firing of selected neurons, while in perception the reverse process takes place.

See also: Dualistic interactionism