Holes in my head. Wires in my brain

About the Project

How do you explain the brain? The most brilliant neurophysiological minds fall short. We don’t understand how the organ we rely on for our reflexes, reasoning, memories and our selves works on the best of days. Our knowledge about how and why it falters and turns ill is woefully paltry. So what convinced Anna Mehler Paperny trying to understand her brain would be a wise or even worthwhile endeavour?

The truth is she felt she had no choice. Fourteen-plus years living with a debilitating mental disorder taught her not only how much devastation a disordered brain can wreak but how little we know about how that happens – and how reprehensibly we fail to act on what we do know. It taught her the costs of our ignorance and the costs of our silence. Call it stigma, call it shame – we don’t talk frankly about this enough and that leaves people feeling isolated while they suffer from one of the leading causes of disability worldwide.

As Ms. Paperny embarked on experimental brain surgery, she felt a degree of responsibility to speak out where she could. It took hours of interviews during which clinicians, as generous with their time as they were meticulous with their knowledge, explained what was known and unknown about Deep Brain Stimulation.

Armed with this knowledge and the details of her own experience, she sought to write engagingly and digestibly about what the procedure seeks to do and what is known about this critical fold of the brain found to be both atrophied and hyperactive in depression. She employed crucial details about the procedure to allow a layperson who may have never considered their brain’s machinations see its intricacies in their mind’s eye, with the goal of making this arcane but enormously impactful world come to life.

She collaborated with Laura Blenkinsop, a digital storytelling editor who had a vision for the story’s presentation that layered video, animation and photography to bring readers inside the experience of Deep Brain Stimulation. These efforts not only brought the story to life, they also humanized the incredibly complex treatment while making it compelling and accessible. Enhancing public understanding of the intervention and the disorder was top of mind as the story came together.