Projections
The New Science of Human Emotion
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- ¥2,000
発行者による作品情報
A groundbreaking tour of the human mind that illuminates the biological nature of our inner worlds and emotions, through gripping, moving—and, at times, harrowing—clinical stories
“[A] scintillating and moving analysis of the human brain and emotions.”—Nature
“Beautifully connects the inner feelings within all human beings to deep insights from modern psychiatry and neuroscience.”—Robert Lefkowitz, Nobel Laureate
Karl Deisseroth has spent his life pursuing truths about the human mind, both as a renowned clinical psychiatrist and as a researcher creating and developing the revolutionary field of optogenetics, which uses light to help decipher the brain’s workings. In Projections, he combines his knowledge of the brain’s inner circuitry with a deep empathy for his patients to examine what mental illness reveals about the human mind and the origin of human feelings—how the broken can illuminate the unbroken.
Through cutting-edge research and gripping case studies from Deisseroth’s own patients, Projections tells a larger story about the material origins of human emotion, bridging the gap between the ancient circuits of our brain and the poignant moments of suffering in our daily lives. The stories of Deisseroth’s patients are rich with humanity and shine an unprecedented light on the self—and the ways in which it can break down. A young woman with an eating disorder reveals how the mind can rebel against the brain’s most primitive drives of hunger and thirst; an older man, smothered into silence by depression and dementia, shows how humans evolved to feel not only joy but also its absence; and a lonely Uighur woman far from her homeland teaches both the importance—and challenges—of deep social bonds.
Illuminating, literary, and essential, Projections is a revelatory, immensely powerful work. It transforms our understanding not only of the brain but of ourselves as social beings—giving vivid illustrations through science and resonant human stories of our yearning for connection and meaning.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Deisseroth, professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, melds the personal with the clinical in his masterful debut on how the human mind works and what can be learned when it goes awry. Using case studies that capture "the central mystery of feelings in the mind," Deisseroth tells moving stories of patients suffering from such maladies as eating disorders (the most mysterious, he writes), psychosis (which can't be reasoned away), and dementia (which means more than just amnesia). Deisseroth relates these stories to his experience as a psychiatrist: the central challenge of psychiatry, he writes, is "to perceive, and experience, unconventional realities from the patient's perspective." He also discusses the emerging field of optogenetics, which allows scientists to examine the workings of individual neurons. As a pioneer in this field, his reflections are particularly noteworthy; he accessibly breaks down the science behind the technology and makes a case for its importance, as it "allow us to link the local activity of individual cells to the global perspective of the brain." Deisseroth also argues for the importance of science, touting the value of research and the significance of "scientific truth—a force that can rescue us from weaknesses of our own construction." Writing with abundant empathy, Deisseroth brings his patients' struggles to life as he educates about both neuroscience and humanity. This is a must-read.
