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What makes you you?

Is it your memories? Your personality? Your sense of humor? Your motivation? What happens when a neurological disease changes one of those things?

In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks talks with neurologist, neuroscientist, and author Dr. Masud Husain about his new book, Our Brains, Our Selves: What a Neurologist's Patients Taught Him About the Brain.

Drawing on the stories of seven patients with different neurological conditions, Dr. Husain explores how changes in the brain can profoundly affect identity, behavior, memory, motivation, humor, and our relationships with others.

We discuss pathological apathy after stroke, personality changes caused by frontotemporal dementia, memory and Alzheimer's disease, the neurological basis of humor, and how cultural and spiritual beliefs shape the way people understand illness. We also explore bigger questions about free will, responsibility, consciousness, and whether there may be aspects of human experience that lie beyond a purely biological explanation.

Dr. Husain shares what decades of caring for patients with neurological disorders have taught him about the brain—and about what it means to be human.

Dr. Masud Husain is Professor of Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow at New College, Oxford. His work spans neurology, neuroscience, psychology, and brain imaging, with a focus on understanding how the brain supports cognition in both healthy individuals and people with neurological disorders. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Brain, one of the world's leading and most influential neurology journals. Our Brains, Our Selves is his first book.

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