Our Brains, Our Selves：What a Neurologist's Patients Taught Him About the Brain (The Guardian Best Books of 2025)

本書由牛津大學神經學家 Masud Husain 撰寫，從臨床第一線出發，探問一個看似簡單卻極為深刻的問題：究竟是什麼形塑了「我是誰」？作者指出，家庭、教育與經歷固然重要，但真正奠定自我感的核心，其實來自大腦。

透過七位病患的真實故事，本書帶領讀者看見當語言、記憶、注意力、動機或同理心受損時，人如何出現令人震撼的轉變：有人逐漸失去詞彙，有人不再在意他人眼光，也有人在記憶錯置中，重新誤認了最親密的關係。

文字冷靜而富同理心，將神經科學知識自然融入人性書寫之中。本書不僅解釋行為改變的原因，也呈現醫療如何為患者帶來恢復與希望，讓讀者重新思考身分、自我與大腦之間微妙而脆弱的連結。

What makes us who we are? Is it our background that creates our identities? Or our families, where we lived, how we were brought up and educated, the jobs we've held? Yes, all of the above, but more fundamental than any of these is our brain.

This is never more evident than if we lose even a single one of our cognitive abilities. People who develop a brain disorder can find that their identity, their sense of self, can undergo dramatic changes. Through the stories of seven of his patients, acclaimed Oxford University neurologist Masud Husain shows us how our brains create our identity, how that identity can be changed, and sometimes even be restored.

Among the people we encounter is a man who ran out of words, a woman who stopped caring what others thought of her and another who, losing her memory, started to believe she was having an affair with the man who was really her husband.

These compelling human dramas reveal how our identities are created by different functions within the brain. They show how modern neuroscience can help to explain the changes in behaviour that occur when our perception, attention, memory, motivation or empathy are altered. By understanding how our brains normally function, neurologists are bringing hope to patients with brain disorders and illuminating the human experience.

The resulting journey will ignite new ideas about who we really are and why we act in the ways we do.