Synopses & Reviews
When journalist Dennis Cass found himself running after his stepfather, Bob, down New York's Amerstam Ave. he was all too aware of how the brain can rule your life. Bob struggled with manic depression and drug addiction, and as a teenager Cass' life was constantly inerrupted by the problems caused by these mental illnesses. Now an adult and new parent, Cass was determined to know just what it was in Bob's brain that kept him from being normal and whether understanding the brain would help him be a better parent. His curiosity led to this poignant, insightful, and often hilarious journey about discovering the inner workings of his brain.
In Head Case Cass infiltrates the world of neuroscience, offering his own brain up to research experiments such as brain mapping, sleep labs, magnetic imaging, and pharmaceutical advances. His exploits reveal the intricacies of addiction, memory, adult attention deficit disorder, and more. Along the way, he weaves in Bob's story as well as his own troubles with stress and depression, giving neuroscience a human touch along with the clinical facts.
Cass attacks the subject of the brain with his heart and mind enticing the reader, not only with a look into what makes them human, but also with his wit and candor. Head Case is an imperative read for anyone who's ever asked themselves why they are who they are.
Synopsis:
When journalist Dennis Cass was nineteen years old his stepfather, Bill, suffered from a psychotic break. Cass tried to commit him to a mental institution only to watch Bill escape from a cab en route to a Harlem hospital and run raving down the streets of Manhattan. Some fifteen years later, a bout of writer's block turned Cass's thoughts toward the brain.
A complete stranger to science, Cass immersed himself in the world of neuroscience, subjecting himself to brain scans, psychological tests, and scientific conferences, as he attempted to gain a better understanding of ADHD, anxiety, stress, motivation and reward, and consciousness. Then things got a little weird. What began as a more clinical effort to understand himself soon became a personal and emotional journey into the fragile, mysterious workings of the mind and the self.
Head Case is a charming, hilarious, and at times harrowing memoir of scientific experimentation. It's a story of science and society, of fathers and sons, and of how the past lives on in the present. Along the way the book asks timeless questions: What do we know about ourselves? What can we know about ourselves? And how much self-knowledge can a single person handle?
Synopsis:
Infiltrating the world of neuroscience, Cass becomes a human guinea pig on a darkly comic journey to understand the human brain and find out what makes us who we are.
About the Author
Dennis Cass has been a journalist for ten years, writing for Harper's, Spin, Mother Jones, and Slate.com. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and son.
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