The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains

Hallucinations, convulsions, delusions, and other symptoms shed light on the brain’s obscure machinery, according to this luminous debut from neurologist Anand. Revisiting cases from her neurology practice as well as medical literature, novels, and even fables, she cites a woman who uttered prophecies in the voice of the Holy Spirit because of an autoimmune disorder that attacked her neurons; a mother with accelerating dementia who told Anand that her grown children were switched at birth with impostor babies; and a former doctor who fabricated stories about why she was at the hospital to paper over neural damage caused by a hemorrhage. At the heart of the book is an exploration of the intimate links between narrative and medicine—how the brain slots confusing impressions into stories to find “order in the chaos,” but also how patients create narratives to understand their symptoms; how doctors selectively cull from that information to shape diagnoses; and how cultural narratives inform the ways patients and doctors view bodies, illness, and treatment. In the process, Anand elegantly transforms the clinical minutiae of neurological disorders into evocative poetry (of a woman suffering from involuntary spasms: “her fingers moved like those of a piano player... her tongue thrusting from her mouth like that of a hummingbird searching for nectar”). It’s an engrossing exploration of the brain’s extraordinary powers and terrifying frailties. (June)