Brain Cuttings:
Explorations of the Brain & More Brain Cuttings

“Carl Zimmer takes us behind the scenes in our own heads. He has ferreted out all the most wondrous, bizarre stories and studies and served them up in this delicious, sizzling, easy-to-digest platter of neuro-goodness.” — Mary Roach, author of Packing for Mars and Stiff

The human brain has long been a mystery, but twenty-first century science is beginning to reveal some of its inner workings. With microscopes and brain scans, with psychological experiments and breakthroughs in genetics, neuroscientists are developing new theories about every aspect of our minds–from the nature of consciousness to the causes of disorders like autism and schizophrenia. In Brain Cuttings and his follow-up ebook More Brain Cuttings, Carl Zimmer takes readers on fascinating explorations of the frontiers of research, shedding light on our innermost existence–the speed of thought, our perception of time, the complex flashes of electricity that give rise to fear and love.

What People Are Saying

“If you want to jump start your knowledge about how the brain does all those marvelous things for us like think, feel, and deal with others, read these essays. Zimmer has the rare capacity to get the science right and make it all feel like a glass of smooth bourbon.”
— Michael Gazzaniga, Director for the SAGE Center for the Study of Mind at the University of California Santa Barbara, author of Human: The Science of What Makes Us Unique.

“These essays combine that rare blend of precision and wonder, hard-nosed reporting and nose for the poetically spooky. The brain should be very pleased to have Carl Zimmer as its scribe.”
— Jad Abumrad, host and creator ofRadiolab

“Few writers are as clear and wide-ranging as Zimmer. In these fifteen day-trips into modern neuroscience, he clears away the fog of jargon to give us a clear view of the newly discovered land.”
— David Eagleman, Baylor College of Medicine, author ofSum