PSB: Pria Anand, author of The Mind Electric, in conversation with Anupam B. Jena

Event Description

PSB: Boston Edition is excited to welcome Pria Anand to celebrate the release of her book The Mind Electric. Physician Anupam B. Jena will join Anand in conversation.

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ABOUT THE MIND ELECTRIC

In this collection of medical tales “reminiscent of Oliver Sacks...the best of medical writing” (Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water), a neurologist reckons with the stories we tell about our brains, and the stories our brains tell us.

A girl believes she has been struck blind for stealing a kiss. A mother watches helplessly as each of her children is replaced by a changeling. A woman is haunted each month by the same four chords of a single song. In neurology, illness is inextricably linked with narrative, the clues to unraveling these mysteries hidden in both the details of a patient's story and the tells of their body.

Stories are etched into the very structure of our brains, coded so deeply that the impulse for storytelling survives and even surges after the most devastating injuries. But our brains are also porous—the stories they concoct shaped by cultural narratives about bodies and illness that permeate the minds of doctors and patients alike. In the history of medicine, some stories are heard, while others—the narratives of women, of Black and brown people, of displaced people, of disempowered people—are too often dismissed.

In The Mind Electric, neurologist Pria Anand reveals—through case study, history, fable, and memoir—all that the medical establishment has overlooked: the complexity and wonder of brains in health and in extremis, and the vast gray area between sanity and insanity, doctor and patient, and illness and wellness, each separated from the next by the thin veneer of a different story.

Moving from the Boston hospital where she treats her patients, to her childhood years in India, to Isla Providencia in the Caribbean and to the Republic of Guinea in West Africa, she demonstrates again and again the compelling paradox at the heart of neurology: that even the most peculiar symptoms can show us something universal about ourselves as humans.

PRAISE FOR THE MIND ELECTRIC

“Anand’s writing is reminiscent of Oliver Sacks...the best of medical writing. I found the tales of her personal experiences and the dive into history fascinating. The Mind Electric is a compelling read." —Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water

“At once epic and intricate, personal and universal, The Mind Electric is a fascinating journey through the curious capacities of our brains. A moving and compelling testimony to the importance of telling—and listening to—the stories of what makes us human.” —Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Women

“Pria Anand braids together science and narrative in this magnificent exploration of how the mind shapes—and upends—the story of our life. The Mind Electric is as gorgeous and complex and astounding as the brain itself.” —Laura van den Berg, author of State of Paradise

"Pria Anand just might be the heir to Oliver Sacks. Her gorgeous writing and incisive analysis reveal the marvelous neurological underpinnings of our existence. A stunning debut!" —Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of What Doctors Feel

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Pria Anand is a neurologist at the Boston Medical Center and an Assistant Professor at the Boston University School of Medicine. She is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Medical School, and she trained in neurology, neuro-infectious diseases, and neuroimmunology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Anupam B. Jena, M.D., Ph.D. is the Joseph P. Newhouse Professor of Health Care Policy and Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an internist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. As one of a small group of physician economists in the world, Dr. Jena uses creative natural experiments to help us understand how health care works, the subject of his 2020 TEDMED talk. He is also the host of the Freakonomics, M.D. podcast, which explores the hidden side of health care, and the author of the national bestseller Random Acts of Medicine – The Hidden Forces that Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape our Health. His work is frequently featured in the media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and others.