by Mark HumphriesThe Spike

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

THE SPIKE An Epic Journey Through the Brain in 2.1 Seconds MARK HUMPHRIES

A brilliant overview of our current understanding of brain function, from perception to action, based on our knowledge of systems neuroscience. Conveying ideas and concepts with impressive clarity, Humphries covers an astonishing amount of scientific literature. A joy to read – Matthias Hennig, University of Edinburgh

An original snapshot of how the brain works that takes readers to the cutting edge of neuroscience research.

Our brains use electricity to communicate. Each nerve cell, each neuron, talks to other neurons by sending a tiny blip of voltage down a gossamer-thin cable. Neuroscientists call that blip ‘the spike’. And spikes are how we do anything: talk, eat and run; see, plan and decide.

In THE SPIKE, Mark Humphries takes us on the journey of a single spike in a single act, from seeing to thinking to moving. Even in these few seconds, more than 10 billion spikes will fire all across the brain. As he follows just one spike across just a few moments in time, we meet dark neurons, the literal silent majority, who sit unmoved by anything and everything going on around them. They are invisible to neuroimaging, and challenge our most deeply held theories of what neurons do. We meet spontaneous spikes: spikes created by neurons without any input from the outside world; spikes created solely by the myriad feedback loops between neurons that drive each other to spike endlessly. Crazier still are spikes born without any input even to the neuron that created them, spikes created solely by the internal cycling of molecules inside a neuron. We encounter layers upon layers of mystery and wonder and almost unimaginable complexity.

New technologies have begun to draw back the curtain on this neuronal drama, and every day new research upends our understanding of how neurons talk to each other. Of how we see, of how we decide, of how we move. But until now we've had no big-picture narrative; no story of how all our discoveries fit together. THE SPIKE tells that story.

MARK HUMPHRIES is a professor of computational neuroscience at the University of Nottingham, where he holds a prestigious seven-year senior fellowship from the UK’s Medical Research Council – the only computational scientist ever to have been awarded one. Before moving to Nottingham in 2018, he was a senior research fellow at the University of Manchester, a fellow at École Normale Supérieure in Paris and a postdoctoral and PhD student at the University of Sheffield. His work has been published in leading scientific journals including Neuron, eLife and Nature Communications. In 2016 he founded the Medium publication ‘The Spike’ to bring the unheralded golden age of systems neuroscience to the general public. His stories there have amassed close to half a million views in the publication’s first two years.

Agent: Jeff Shreve

Publisher: Princeton University Press Publication: 9 March 2021 Length: 232 pages

All rights available excluding World English Language (Princeton University Press), Japan (Newton)

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

OUCH! Why Pain Hurts and Why It Doesn’t Have To MARGEE KERR & LINDA RODRIGUEZ MCROBBIE

Ouch! is a fascinating romp through the science of pain with a few historical gems thrown in for good measure. With advice on how we might all change our relationships with pain, it’s an entertaining guide to why what doesn’t kill you really can make you stronger – Caroline Williams, author of OVERRIDE and MOVE!

Whether you’re suffering from chronic pain or simply curious about the workings of the human body and mind, this book will change the way you think about this fundamental human experience that, directly or indirectly, affects us all.

From the mounting casualties of the opioid crisis to doctors downplaying and misdiagnosing patients’ suffering, we clearly have an increasingly dysfunctional relationship with pain. As children we’re taught to avoid pain at all costs and rely on painkillers to dull even the mildest of aches. Yet this strategy of avoidance and suppression has unexpectedly resulted in our feeling worse.

The first step to feeling better, argue Margee Kerr and Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, is to stop being scared and lean into the pain. In OUCH!, they reveal that pain is a rich, layered experience governed not only by the signals tripped the moment a needle pricks our skin but also by where we are, who we’re with, why we’re there, and our individual history. By understanding the complexity of how pain is made, we can learn in many cases how to reduce the perceived intensity of pain as well as recast and transform the negative emotions – the fear and helplessness – associated with it.

On their journey Kerr and McRobbie seek out pain-sensing robots and pain-seeking parishioners, explore burning bug bites and blissful lashings and witness for themselves – at the Tough Mudder, a team-oriented 18–20-kilometre obstacle course designed to test physical strength and mental grit – the power of pain to bring people together. Ultimately, OUCH! offers us a deeper understanding of this incredibly subjective yet universal experience, revealing a truth we instinctively know: not all pain is bad, not all pain is harmful. As they discover, pain can be not just useful, but even rewarding.

Through immersive reporting, in-depth interviews and original research, OUCH! takes us on an adventure to discover that pain is not just something that happens to us, and that we have more control over our experience than we think.

MARGEE KERR is a sociologist who has been teaching and conducting research since 2004. The author of SCREAM: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear (PublicAffairs, 2015), she holds a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon and the New York Post, among other publications. She lives in Philadelphia.

LINDA RODRIGUEZ McROBBIE is a freelance writer and journalist specializing in science, culture and history. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine, the Boston Globe, Slate, Atlas Obscura and other outlets. She is the author of PRINCESSES BEHAVING BADLY: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings (Quirk Books, 2013). She lives in London.

Agent: Tisse Takagi

Publisher: Bloomsbury Sigma Publication: 21 January 2021 Length: 320 pages

All rights available excluding World English (Bloomsbury Sigma), Russia (Exsmo)