Neurologist Masud Husain wins the 2025 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize

Our Brains, Our Selves is the winner of the 2025 Royal Society Science Book Prize, supported by the Trivedi Family Foundation.

About the book

Is it our background that creates our identities? Or our families, where we lived, how we were brought up and educated, the jobs we’ve held? Yes, all of the above, but more fundamental than any of these is our brain. This is never more evident than if we lose even a single one of our cognitive abilities. People who develop a brain disorder can find that their identity, their sense of self, can undergo dramatic changes.

Through the stories of seven of his patients, acclaimed Oxford University neurologist Masud Husain shows us how our brains create our identity, how that identity can be changed, and sometimes even be restored. Among the people we encounter is a man who used to be the life and soul of the party but has now become profoundly apathetic. Another who ran out of words. And a woman who believed she was having an affair with the man who was really her husband.

https://royalsociety.org/medals-and-prizes/science-book-prize/books/2025/our-brains-our-selves/