Read more
Harvard neuroscientist Dr. Anna Chambers takes us inside a state-of-the-art brain research laboratory, showing us how scientists unpack the biological secrets that make headlines and save lives Our brain is the source of our thoughts, feelings, dreams, and actions, and in recent decades, neuroscience has revealed fascinating details about how it works. But how do we know what we know? In Circuit Breakers , Harvard-trained neuroscientist Dr. Anna Chambers takes us inside a state-of-the-art brain research laboratory. Here, we learn how cutting edge tools can manipulate memories, make brain cells glow in the dark, and record signals from thousands of neurons at once. From the delicate electrodes that enable a child to hear for the first time, to the genetic engineering techniques that allow us to control the brain with lasers, Circuit Breakers weaves down-to-earth explanations of the powerful tools of neuroscience with the little-known stories of the scientists who helped to create them. In the rapidly expanding field of neuroscience, unprecedented discoveries may be “all in a day’s work,” and thus it is through the structure of a typical (but altogether wondrous) day-from breakfast with her toddler to peering into “a rig” and marveling at the elegant branches of a living brain cell-Chambers invites us into spaces where few nonscientists ever venture. Chambers leavens her lessons in neuroscience with details from her own often-grueling journey to becoming a researcher. As a first-generation college student, a woman, and a mother in a field that is still overwhelmingly male and privileged, her perspective is an unusual one, and she is deeply committed to mentoring aspiring scientists, improving scientific literacy, and dispelling the many myths about the “black box” of the brain.
About the author
Dr. Anna Chambers is a neuroscientist who conducts research on memory, sleep and hearing. She is an Instructor of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery at Harvard Medical School and a researcher in the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital in Boston. She studied neuroscience as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins, received a Ph.D. from Harvard in 2015, and conducted postdoctoral fellowships in Germany and Norway. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and two sons.
