Circuit Breakers: How Neuroscientists Get Inside Your Head

by Anna Chambers

Harvard 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 livesOur 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 Breakers, Harvard-trained neuroscientist Dr. Anna Chambers takes us inside a state-of-the-art brain research laboratory. Here, we 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 Breakers 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 nonscientists 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.

288 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication November 3, 2026