Professor Dame Uta Frith and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss 'Our Brains Our Selves: what a neurologist’s patients taught him about the brain' by Masud Husain Masud Husain is a neurologist and a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. This book tells the stories of seven of his patients, whose personal and social identities were deeply affected by their neurological condition. He shows how their very different problems have illuminated our understanding of how our brains work and how they generate our sense of self. The book also illustrates how impaired brain function can lead to a loss of our social identity. It is written with great insight and compassion.
Professor Dame Uta Frith is Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, and a Fellow of the Royal Society. She has a special interest in autism and dyslexia and pioneered much of the key research into these brain conditions. Her book 'Autism: Explaining the Enigma' provided the first account of what happens inside the mind of a person with autism.
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Professor Dame Uta Frith and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss 'Our Brains Our Selves: what a neurologist’s patients taught him about the brain' by Masud Husain Masud Husain is a neurologist and a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. This book tells the stories of seven of his patients, whose personal and social identities were deeply affected by their neurological condition. He shows how their very different problems have illuminated our understanding of how our brains work and how they generate our sense of self. The book also illustrates how impaired brain function can lead to a loss of our social identity. It is written with great insight and compassion.
Professor Dame Uta Frith is Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, and a Fellow of the Royal Society. She has a special interest in autism and dyslexia and pioneered much of the key research into these brain conditions. Her book 'Autism: Explaining the Enigma' provided the first account of what happens inside the mind of a person with autism.
A Good Science Read: 'The Coming Plague' and 'Spike: The Virus vs. The People - the Inside Story'
A Good Science Read
36 minutes
5 months ago
A Good Science Read: 'The Coming Plague' and 'Spike: The Virus vs. The People - the Inside Story'
Georgina Ferry and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss 'The Coming Plague' by Laurie Garrett, and 'Spike: The Virus vs. The People - the Inside Story' by Jeremy Farrar and Anjana Ahuja. 'The Coming Plague' is an extremely well researched book that presents a history of old and new plagues such as TB, cholera, influenza, Ebola and hantavirus, and tells the stories of the scientists who study them. Garrett delivers a warning about how ill prepared we are to cope with emerging infectious disease and how politics, bureaucratic infighting and drug company competition make things worse. Written in 1995, she was remarkably prescient as the Covid 19 pandemic has clearly shown.
'Spike: The Virus vs. The People - the Inside Story' is an account of the Covid19 pandemic written by an expert on infectious disease who was at the heart of the fight against the virus, together with science writer Anjana Ahuja. It vividly describes the conflict between UK scientists and politicians on how to contain the spread of the virus. It also tells of Farrar’s initial concerns that the virus could have been manufactured, explains why there are so many variants, and considers what we should have done differently. The book was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Royal Society book prize.
Georgina Ferry is a science writer, biographer and broadcaster. She has a particular interest in women in science and her biography of the Nobel prize winning crystallographer Dorothy Hodgkin was short-listed for both the Duff Cooper Prize and the March Biography Award. It has recently been reissued by Bloomsbury. Her next book, The Penicillin Century, will be published by OUP in 2026. She has also recorded a series of podcasts with people involved in Oxford’s response to the Covid19 pandemic.
Websites:
https://mgf.longferry.co.uk/
https://www.lauriegarrett.com/
https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/collecting-covid-oral-histories
A Good Science Read
Professor Dame Uta Frith and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss 'Our Brains Our Selves: what a neurologist’s patients taught him about the brain' by Masud Husain Masud Husain is a neurologist and a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. This book tells the stories of seven of his patients, whose personal and social identities were deeply affected by their neurological condition. He shows how their very different problems have illuminated our understanding of how our brains work and how they generate our sense of self. The book also illustrates how impaired brain function can lead to a loss of our social identity. It is written with great insight and compassion.
Professor Dame Uta Frith is Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, and a Fellow of the Royal Society. She has a special interest in autism and dyslexia and pioneered much of the key research into these brain conditions. Her book 'Autism: Explaining the Enigma' provided the first account of what happens inside the mind of a person with autism.
