Anand, Pria: The Mind Electric

Through twelve staggeringly compelling and beautifully crafted linked case studies, neurologist Pria Anand explores the myriad ways our brains both hide and reveal the world and ourselves from us. Taking inspiration from the legendary work of Oliver Sacks, Dr. Anand introduces us to some of her patients, exploring the fascinating continuum of neurological disorder she‘s treated and researched, from a fatal insomnia that curses a family over generations to an attack of encephalitis that convinces an overachieving perfect student that she‘s channeling the voice of the Holy Spirit. With a timely intervention on the existing canon of writing about the brain, Dr. Anand centres the experiences of women with neurologic illnesses, which are so often marginalized, and invites us to consider the vulnerability, complexity and power of our body‘s most mysterious organ. Interwoven with these gripping stories, Dr. Anand chronicles her own experiences of stress, physicality, and exhaustion that pushed her brain to its limits throughout her journey from resident to doctor, as she navigated pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood along the way. This personal anchoring invites us to consider that, as Dr. Anand eloquently puts it, "there is a continuity between brains in extremis and the peculiarities of human brains even in the absence of disease, that neurologic symptoms are metonymic for the human experience in a way that extends far beyond the confines of particular rare diseases, and that the experience of neurologic disease-the mythologies it inspires, the fallacies it impels-is universal."