I am an explorer, but unlike my predecessors who used compasses and canoes
to discover unknown lands, I used a scalpel and a small electrode to explore and
map the human brain. Throughout my career I was driven by the central question
that has obsessed both scientists and philosophers for hundreds of years. Are
mind and body one? Can the mind – thinking, reasoning, imagination – be explained
by the functions of the brain?
As a doctor, my first concern was always for my patients – to relieve the
terrible suffering caused by diseases such as epilepsy. I found that by
stimulating the exposed brain of a conscious patient with a small electrical
current, the patient could tell me what they were feeling or seeing, and through
this we could isolate the damaged part of the brain. I developed treatments for
epilepsy based on this knowledge.
But the procedure also opened a window to the mind, giving us for the first
time a glimpse of how dreaming occurs, how memory works, and where speech and
speech comprehension reside. You can visit my operating room at the
Montreal Neurological Institute if you would like to see for yourself. We have a
patient prepped in room #3, and we are ready to begin examining his brain
