by Sam Kean
With Gage, it’s fitting that his life has been transformed into legend. He and so many others from the history of neuroscience—the kuru cannibals, the pituitary giants, even blind James Holman—do at times seem like characters from myths or fairy tales. And like fables, their stories have taught us an awful lot. We now know how our neurons fire and exchange neurotransmitters. We know how circuits chirp and whir upon seeing a familiar face. We know what underlies our urges and animal drives, and from those building blocks we can reconstruct how we reason and move and communicate. Above all, we know that there’s a physical basis for every psychological attribute we have: if just the right spot gets damaged, we can lose just about anything in our mental repertoire, no matter how sacred. And although we don’t fully understand the alchemy that transforms the buzzing of billions of cells into a spritely, creative human mind, new tales continue to pull the curtain back a little farther.
Perhaps even more important than the science, these stories enrich our understanding of the human condition—which is, after all, the point of stories. Whenever we read about people’s lives, fictional or non-, we have to put ourselves into the minds of the characters. And honestly, my mind has never had to stretch so far, never had to work so hard, as it did to inhabit the minds of people with brain damage. They’re recognizably human in so many ways, and yet still somehow off: Hamlet seems transparent next to H.M.
But that’s the power of stories, to reach across that divide. These people’s minds don’t work quite like ours, it’s true. We can still identify with them, though, on a basic, human level: They want the same things we want, and endure the same disappointments. Feel the same joys, and suffer the same bewilderment that life got away from them. Even their tragedies provide some solace, for we know that if any one of us were to suffer a catastrophic injury—or succumb to a common plague of old age, like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s—our minds would cling to our inner selves with the same tenacity. The you in you won’t disappear.
There are a lot of tales of injury and woe in this book. But there’s a hell of a lot of resiliency, too. We’re all fragile, and we’re all very, very strong. Even that paradigmatic example of a life falling apart because of a brain injury, Phineas Gage, might have recovered more than most scientists ever hoped. No one’s brain gets through life unscathed. But the thing about the brain is that, despite what changes, so much remains intact. Despite all the differences between different people’s minds, that’s one thing we all share. After his accident, friends and family swore that Phineas Gage was no longer Phineas Gage. Well, he was and he wasn’t. And he was all of us, too.
Acknowledgments
The book you’re holding in your hand was the product of many, many different people’s brains, and I feel lucky for having had the chance to tap into their collective consciousness and collect the results. Everyone contributed something important, and if I’ve left anyone off this list, I remain thankful, if embarrassed.
Once again, a big thank-you to my loved ones. My parents, Gene and Jean, have been there for me literally my whole life, and have taken my occasional writing about them with good humor. (That’s why I’m not going to point out that my mother actually failed the happy/sad face test on here. She thinks backwards.) The same goes for my siblings, Ben and Becca, two of the best people I know. And I’m happy to add some little’uns, Penny and Harrison Schultz, to the list this time. All my friends in Washington, D.C., and South Dakota and around the country have helped me get through some rough times, and I’m happy to share the good ones with them still.
My agent, Rick Broadhead, loved this idea from the get-go, and helped steer it to a great finish. And I thank, too, my editor John Parsley, whose encouragement and insight teased out the best I had inside me. I spent many hours writing before I knew John, but he taught me what I know about writing a book. Also invaluable were others at and around Little, Brown who’ve worked with me on this book and others, including Malin von Euler-Hogan, Carolyn O’Keefe, Morgan Moroney, Peggy Freudenthal, Deborah Jacobs, and Chris Jerome. I also owe a heaping helping of thanks to Will Staehle, who once again designed a kickass cover, and to Andrew Brozyna, who drew those delightful rebuses and illustrations of the brain.
Finally, I offer a special thanks to the many, many brainy scientists and historians who contributed to individual chapters and passages, either by fleshing out stories, helping me hunt down information, or offering their time to explain something. They’re too numerous to list here, but rest assured that I haven’t forgotten your help.
About the Author
Sam Kean is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Disappearing Spoon and The Violinist’s Thumb. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Mental Floss, Slate, Psychology Today, and New Scientist and has been featured on NPR’s Radiolab, All Things Considered, and Fresh Air.
samkean.com
@sam_kean
ALSO BY SAM KEAN
The Violinist’s Thumb
The Disappearing Spoon
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