Circuit Breakers: How Neuroscientists Get Inside Your Head

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

In recent decades, neuroscience has revealed fascinating details about how the brain works in health and disease. But how do we know what we know?

In Circuit Breakers, Harvard neuroscientist Dr. Anna Chambers pulls back the curtain to show us what happens in the modern brain research laboratory. Here, we learn how cutting-edge tools can manipulate memories, make neurons glow in the dark, and record signals at every level, from the whole brain to a single synapse.

Perfect for readers of David Eagleman's Livewired and Robert Sapolsky's Behave, Circuit Breakers weaves down-to-earth explanations of futuristic tools, like human brain implants and laser-controlled neurons, with candid interviews and stories from the author's own often-grueling journey as a researcher.

In the rapidly expanding field of neuroscience, unprecedented discoveries may be all in a day's work. Through stories of the 'science around the science'--all the daily problems a scientist must solve, like accessing a living brain encased in a skull, or figuring out how to coax unusual creatures like cuttlefish and bats into behaving naturally in a lab--Chambers invites us into spaces where few of us ever venture.

Throughout, Chambers tells the little-known stories of these discoveries with equal parts humor and wonder. Through sharing this fascinating--and sometimes downright strange--profession with the wider world, Circuit Breakers is deeply committed to inspiring young neuroscientists, improving scientific literacy, and dispelling the many myths about the brain, the ultimate "black box."

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.