CIRCUIT BREAKER

Our brain is the source of our thoughts, feelings, dreams and actions, and in recent decades, neuroscience has revealed fascinating details about how it works. But how do we know what we know?

In CIRCUIT BREAKER, Harvard-trained neuroscientist Dr. Anna Chambers takes you inside a state-of-the-art brain research laboratory. Here, you learn how cutting edge tools can manipulate memories, make brain cells glow in the dark, and record signals from thousands of neurons at once. From the delicate electrodes that enable a child to hear for the first time, to the genetic engineering techniques that allow us to control the brain with lasers, CIRCUIT BREAKER weaves down-to-earth explanations of the powerful tools of neuroscience with the little-known stories of the scientists who helped to create them. In the rapidly expanding field of neuroscience, unprecedented discoveries may be "all in a day's work," and thus it is through the structure of a typical (but altogether wondrous) day--from breakfast with her toddler to peering into "a rig" and marveling at the elegant branches of a living brain cell - Chambers invites us into spaces where few non-scientists ever venture. Chambers leavens her lessons in neuroscience with details from her own often grueling journey to becoming a researcher. As a first-generation college student, a woman and a mother in a field that is still overwhelmingly male and privileged, her perspective is an unusual one, and she is deeply committed to mentoring aspiring scientists, improving scientific literacy and dispelling the many myths about the "black box" of the brain. Anna R. Chambers is a neuroscientist who conducts research on the brain's mechanisms for daydreaming, sleep, memory, and hearing. She received a bachelor's degree from Johns Hopkins University in 2009, a PhD in neurobiology from Harvard Medical School in 2015 and conducted postdoctoral fellowships in Germany and Norway. Her 15+ years of training in neuroscience have been focused on experimental techniques. Since 2019, she has led a research group in the Laboratory for Neural Computation at the University of Oslo, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences. In early 2023, she will join the faculty at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Chambers has authored numerous scientific articles and received awards and funding from the European Research Council and the Research Council of Norway, among others. She grew up in the United States, Korea and Bolivia, and currently splits her time between Boston and Oslo with her husband and son.