Eagleman - photo by Brian Goldman David Eagleman is a neuroscientist and a New York Times bestselling author. He heads the Center for Science and Law, a national non-profit institute, and serves as an adjunct professor at Stanford University. He is best known for his work on sensory substitution, time perception, brain plasticity, synesthesia, and neurolaw.

He is the writer and presenter of the international PBS series, The Brain with David Eagleman, and the author of the companion book, The Brain: The Story of You.

Beyond his 100+ academic publications, he has published many popular books. His bestselling book Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, explores the neuroscience "under the hood" of the conscious mind: all the aspects of neural function to which we have no awareness or access. His work of fiction, SUM, is an international bestseller published in 28 languages and turned into two operas. Why the Net Matters examines what the advent of the internet means on the timescale of civilizations. The award-winning Wednesday is Indigo Blue explores the neurological condition of synesthesia, in which the senses are blended. The Runaway Species, co-authored with music composer Anthony Brandt, explores the neuroscience and behavior behind human creativity.

Eagleman is a TED speaker, a Guggenheim Fellow, a winner of the McGovern Award for Excellence in Biomedical Communication, a Next Generation Texas Fellow, Vice-Chair on the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Neuroscience & Behaviour, a research fellow in the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, Chief Scientific Advisor for the Mind Science Foundation, and a board member of The Long Now Foundation. He has served as an academic editor for several scientific journals. He was named Science Educator of the Year by the Society for Neuroscience, and was featured as one of the Brightest Idea Guys by Italy's Style magazine. He is founder of the company BrainCheck and the cofounder of the company NeoSensory. He was the scientific advisor for the television drama Perception, and has been profiled on the Colbert Report, NOVA Science Now, the New Yorker, CNN's Next List, and many other venues. He appears regularly on radio and television to discuss literature and science.

LIVEWIRED: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain

Outstanding popular science. - Kirkus (Starred Review)

"[D]elivers an intellectually exhilarating look at neuroplasticity.... Eagleman’s skill as teacher, bold vision, and command of current research will make this superb work a curious reader’s delight." - Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

"Since the passing of Isaac Asimov, we haven't had a working scientist like Dr. Eagleman, who engages his ideas in such a variety of modes. "Livewired" reads wonderfully, like what a book would be if it were written by Oliver Sacks and William Gibson, sitting on Carl Sagan's front lawn.” - Wall Street Journal

"The pages of LIVEWIRED are chock-full of mind bending ideas and dazzling insights. Eagleman's infectious enthusiasm, his use of fascinating anecdotes, and his clear, effortless prose render the secrets of the brain’s adaptability into a truly compelling page-turner." - Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner

"Fascinating work... recommended for readers interested in neuroscience, technology, and the intersection of the two." - Library Journal (starred review)

"David Eagleman, the Jolly Sherlock Holmes of neuroscience, makes me believe that the universe of possibility required to create utopia is already housed in each of our brains. His knowledge and enthusiasm are intoxicating. His book demonstrates the principle about which he is writing; my mind has been changed by his words." - Russell Brand

"Livewired is terrific. If you have a mind, David Eagleman will boggle it for you." - Hugh Laurie

"David's a brilliant writer and thinker, and he knows more about how we tick and why we tick than anyone I know." - Neil Gaiman, author"I read David Eagleman's magnificent new book about a month ago, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. Eagleman has (once again) permanently altered the way I experience my brain's complex and creative dance with the outside world." - Annaka Harris, author of Conscious“An altogether fascinating tour of the astonishing plasticity and interconnectedness inside the cranial cradle of all of our experience of reality, animated by Eagleman’s erudite enthusiasm for his subject, aglow with the ecstasy of sensemaking that comes when the seemingly unconnected snaps into a consummate totality of understanding.”- Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

Eagleman and Brian Eno bring Sum to Sydney Opera House

In June, 2009, David Eagleman collaborated with musician/producer Brian Eno to perform a musical reading of Sum to 1,000 people at the Sydney Opera House. In May of 2010 they performed together again to 1,200 people at the Brighton Dome in England. Stay tuned for further performances.

Eagleman TED Talk

See David Eagleman's TED talk entitled "Can we create new senses for humans?"

New Yorker magazine profile

Read a profile of David in The New Yorker: The Possibilian: What a brush with death taught David Eagleman about the mysteries of time and the brain by Burkhard Bilger.
Eagleman in the New Yorker

SUM is Book of the Year: Chicago Tribune

SUM was chosen as the best book of 2009 by Chicago Tribune's Pulitzer-winning literary critic Julia Keller.

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From the Eagleman Blog

Scanning a 3,000 year old mummy

I performed a CT scan on an Egyptian mummy, and found beautiful objects inside.

Silicon Immortality: Downloading Consciousness into Computers

Well before we understand how brains work, we may find ourselves able to digitally copy the brain's structure and able to download the conscious mind

Radiolab fan? We are too.

We love NPR's Radiolab. If you haven't listened to it yet, you should. Check out several episodes featuring David's science or writing.

Why I am a Possibilian

Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion. A third position, agnostici

Documentary on the History Channel

Interested in issues of memory and the brain? Watch a clip of David on the History Channel.

After school shootings: Why mental illness matters

School shootings spark debate ranging from gun control to bulletproof windows. But the most fruitful approach may be to prioritize our discussion of m

BrainCheck

How can you collect data reflecting the changes in cognitive function that appear when someone has a concussion? BrainCheck combines neuroscience with

A new map of the human brain

New paper in Nature describes the most highly detailed map of the human cortex so far.

James Holmes’ Brain: Some Initial Speculations

In the wake of the Aurora movie theater shooting, many people had the same questions: What kind of derangement is indicated by the horrific acts of Ja

Time perception on the Discovery Channel

Watch an experiment in which we studied time perception by dropping volunteer subjects from a 150 foot high tower. Free fall.

Love Italo Calvino? Me too. Listen to a BBC Radio documentary.

I hosted a BBC radio documentary to explore the imagination of one of Italy's foremost writers, Italo Calvino.

Brain Time

The days of thinking of time as a river—evenly flowing, always advancing—are over. Time perception, just like vision, is a construction of the bra

Learn more about the Science

Antiphospholipid Syndrome

Far to the left-field of my normal research, I'm pursuing a new hypothesis: whether there is a connection between people who get envenomated by the asp caterpillar, and the acquisition of antiphospholipid syndrome (APS)

Time perception

To understand the neural mechanisms of time perception, David's lab combines psychophysical, behavioral, and computational approaches to address the relationship between the timing of perception and the underlying neural signals.

Neurolaw

David is founder and co-director of the Center for Science and Law, which studies how new discoveries in neuroscience can navigate the way we make laws, punish criminals, and develop rehabilitation.

Synesthesia

In synesthesia, information between the senses is blended. Letters might trigger the experience of colors, or sounds the experience of taste, or many other combinations. My laboratory has tested and verified over 20,000 synesthetes, and we are working to understand how it sheds light on consciousness, from the genetics to the neural networks.

Sensory Substitution

Can sensory data be fed through unusual sensory channels? And can the brain learn to extract the meaning of such information streams? Yes and yes. Sensory substitution is a non-invasive technique for circumventing the loss of one sense by feeding its information through another channel.

Deep brain recording in humans

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) targets deep nuclei in the brain to help with Parkinsons Disease or tremor. During surgery, we have a window to measure the responses of single neurons in the human brain. While the recording electrodes are in place, we present sights and sounds to a patient while the responses of the neurons are recorded. Find out more.

Other Projects

Other projects in our lab include the use of real-time feedback neuroimaging to break drug addiction, intervention programs in high-violence neighborhoods, word aversion, illusory motion reversal, the flash lag effect, a theory of cerebellar glomeruli, extracellular calcium as a neurotransmitter, and dopamine and human decision-making. Click to learn more.