My fascination with the brain began when I was an undergraduate, and since has grown into an insatiable curiosity about all things neuroscience. Today my main job is teaching courses in the health sciences at The Pennsylvania State University, but I spend much of my free time trying to find ways to make neuroscience understandable to those who share my enthusiasm for learning about it. I mostly do this through my books and a series of short neuroscience videos on my YouTube channel: Neuroscientifically Challenged.
I wrote
Bizarre: The Most Peculiar Cases of Human Behavior and What They Tell Us about How the Brain Works
The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons is a fun, engaging, and well-written introduction to your brain and some of the most interesting characters in the history of neuroscience.
Sam Kean is an excellent science writer—the type who draws you in so much with his storytelling that you forget you’re actually learning something. By the end of this book, you’ll know more about how the brain works, but perhaps better yet you’ll have enjoyed an array of colorful historical tales that explain how our knowledge of the brain has advanced over the years.
For centuries, scientists had only one way to study the brain: wait for misfortune to strike - strokes, seizures, infections, lobotomies, horrendous accidents, phantom limbs, Siamese twins - and see how the victims changed afterwards. In many cases their survival was miraculous, and observers marvelled at the transformations that took place when different parts of the brain were destroyed. Parents suddenly couldn't recognise their children. Pillars of the community became pathological liars and paedophiles. Some people couldn't speak but could still sing. Others couldn't read but could write. The stories of these people laid the foundations of modern neuroscience and,…
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a classic of popular neuroscience writing, and Oliver Sacks is one of the best science writers to ever do it.
This book really was the prototype for my book, as it is a collection of unusual neurological disorders and descriptions of the patients they affect. But of course, Sacks does it better than I ever could. He describes these cases as a series of captivating stories, each of which explains different aspects of brain function as well as helps you to appreciate the human side of neurology.
If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self - himself - he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.
In this extraordinary book, Dr. Oliver Sacks recounts the stories of patients struggling to adapt to often bizarre worlds of neurological disorder. Here are people who can no longer recognize everyday objects or those they love; who are stricken with violent tics or shout involuntary obscenities, and yet are gifted with…
With Franklin Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, Vice President Harry Truman and Senator Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican leader on foreign policy, inherited a world in turmoil. With Europe flattened and the Soviets emerging as America’s new adversary, Truman and Vandenberg built a tight, bipartisan partnership at a bitterly partisan time…
If you’re looking for an easy-to-understand and entertaining introduction to the basics of how your brain works, The Brain is a great choice.
The author, David Eagleman, is an accomplished neuroscientist who has both a deep understanding of brain function and a talent for explaining those functions in a clear and engaging style.
The book also explores how neuroscience might influence some profound philosophical questions about free will, consciousness, and more—so you’ll get a dose of deep thinking along with some fundamental neuroscience knowledge.
'This is the story of how your life shapes your brain, and how your brain shapes your life.'
Join renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman on a whistle-stop tour of the inner cosmos. It's a journey that will take you into the world of extreme sports, criminal justice, genocide, brain surgery, robotics and the search for immortality. On the way, amidst the infinitely dense tangle of brain cells and their trillions of connections, something emerges that you might not have expected to see: you.
Helen Thomson’s Unthinkable follows her around the world as she travels to meet individuals with some of the strangest neurological conditions imaginable.
Thomson is a respected journalist, and her writing talent really shines in describing these cases and how they are tied back to abnormalities in brain function. Unthinkable will teach you some neuroscience, but most of all it’s just a really fun read.
'Wonderfully clear, fluent and eye-opening' THE TIMES
'A stirring scientific journey, a celebration of human diversity and a call to rethink the "unthinkable"' NATURE
'An utterly fascinating romp around the nether regions of the human mind' BIG ISSUE
IMAGINE . . . getting lost in a one-room flat; seeing auras; never forgetting a moment; a permanent orchestra in your head; turning into a tiger; life as an out-of-body experience; feeling other people's pain; being convinced you are dead; becoming a different person overnight.
Our brains are far stranger than we think. We take it for granted that we can remember,…
Doctors at War: The Clandestine Battle against the Nazi Occupation of France takes readers into the moral labyrinth of the Occupation years, 1940-45, to examine how the medical community dealt with the evil authority imposed on them. Anti-Jewish laws prevented many doctors from practicing, inspiring many to form secret medical…
Sleep takes up 1/3 of our lives, and it’s only relatively recently we’ve learned that our brains are incredibly active during this seemingly quiescent period.
In The Nocturnal Brain, Guy Leschziner—a renowned neurologist—describes some of the most intriguing cases of sleep disorders he has encountered in the clinic. The result is a fascinating examination of one of the most important parts of our neurological lives.
A renowned neurologist shares the true stories of people unable to get a good night’s rest in The Nocturnal Brain: Nightmares, Neuroscience, and the Secret World of Sleep, a fascinating exploration of the symptoms and syndromes behind sleep disorders.
For Dr. Guy Leschziner’s patients, there is no rest for the weary in mind and body. Insomnia, narcolepsy, night terrors, apnea, and sleepwalking are just a sampling of conditions afflicting sufferers who cannot sleep—and their experiences in trying are the stuff of nightmares. Demoniac hallucinations frighten people into paralysis. Restless legs rock both the sleepless and their sleeping partners with unpredictable…
Bizarre is a collection of the strangest conditions and behaviors to emerge from the brain, along with a discussion of what might go awry in someone’s neural circuitry to cause them. It describes conditions such as: clinical lycanthropy, where people believe they can change into animals; body integrity identity disorder, where patients feel an overwhelming sense that part of their body doesn't belong (some even turn to amputation to remove it); and objectum sexuality, where people are romantically attracted to objects like an amusement park ride or car. And I cover much, much more—ranging from the extremely unusual to everyday aberrations. If you’re intrigued by mysterious medical cases, strange disorders, peculiar behavior, and/or how the brain works, then this book is for you!
Dr. Mark Lin, a cynical and disillusioned internist, is the target of a hacker known as Doctor Lucifer. Three patients at Ivory Memorial Hospital suffer from medication errors, created by the hacker, yet Mark is forced to take the blame. He knows a computer worm is spreading and crippling network…
The Model Spy is based on the true story of Toto Koopman, who spied for the Allies and Italian Resistance during World War II.
Largely unknown today, Toto was arguably the first woman to spy for the British Intelligence Service. Operating in the hotbed of Mussolini's Italy, she courted danger…
