PROJECTIONS

In this groundbreaking tour of the human mind, a renowned psychiatrist and neuroscientist explores the biological and evolutionary origins of human emotions through poignant, and at times shocking, clinical stories of schizophrenia, anorexia, anxiety, and dementia.

Karl Deisseroth has spent his life pursuing truths about the human mind, both as a practicing clinical psychiatrist and as a researcher who created the revolutionary field of optogenetics, which allows us to decipher the brain's inner workings using light. In his first book, Projections, he combines his groundbreaking access to the brain's inner circuitry with a deep empathy for his patients to examine what mental illness can reveal about the mind and the origin of human feelings--how the broken can illuminate the unbroken.
An internationally acclaimed professor of bioengineering and psychiatry at Stanford, Deisseroth's true passion is as a clinical psychiatrist, and it is the stories of his patients that form the backbone of Projections. Through these case studies, he tells the larger story of how we can understand the physical and biological origins of human emotion in the brain. As such, he describes vividly how humans experience feelings both in the simple and ancient circuits of our brains and in 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 breaks 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; while an older gentleman, smothered into silence by depression and dementia, illuminates how humans evolved to feel joy and its absence; and a lonely Uyghur woman far from home teaches the importance of rich social bonds. An illuminating and essential work, Projections transforms the way we understand the brain as a biological and as an emotional object.
A MAJOR FIGURE IN HIS FIELD: Deisseroth runs the Deisseroth Lab at Stanford University, which regularly produces significant breakthroughs in bioengineering and neuroscience and has won numerous awards, including the 2018 Kyoto Prize, the 2017 Fresenius Prize, and the 2020 Heineken Prize. As Deisseroth's legacy is cemented, international recognition of his contributions to neuroscience will only grow. He also has a large network of prominent scientists who will support the book.
ACCESSIBLE, RELATABLE STORIES: By continuing to work as a psychiatrist, Deisseroth never lost the human element of his work--and the stories in this book are rich with feelings that are familiar to most people, not just those who have struggled with their mental health.
BREAKOUT POTENTIAL: Like Daniel Kahneman's bestselling Thinking Fast and Slow, Projections has the potential to bring groundbreaking research about the human mind into the general consciousness.
Author Bio: Karl Deisseroth is Professor of Bioengineering and Psychiatry at Stanford University. He received his undergraduate degree summa cum laude at Harvard, and his MD/PhD at Stanford where he completed psychiatry training and is board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. Deisseroth is known for creating and applying new technologies for studying the brain, including optogenetics-- for which he was the winner of the 2018 Kyoto Prize and the 2020 Heineken Prize, among many other major international awards. Deisseroth has five children and lives near Stanford University, where he teaches and directs Stanford's undergraduate degree in Bioengineering, and treats patients with mood disorders and autism. Deisseroth helped craft the multibillion-dollar ongoing US national BRAIN Initiative, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering.
Residence: Palo Alto, CA Hometown: Boston, MA