“Every time I’m in the position to open a person’s skull, it’s extraordinary in the sense that this is where we live,” says brain surgeon James Doty. “What you see is these hills and valleys that are sort of pinkish, and you see blood vessels coursing over the surface. There’s a membrane where fluid is, and it’s pulsating. And that pulsating is matching the rhythm of your heart. And to think that within that is who each of us is.
Doty is on the cutting edge of our knowledge of the brain and the heart: how they talk to each other; what compassion means in the body and in action; and how we can reshape our lives and perhaps our species through the scientific and human understanding we are now gaining.