Naturejobs Podcast

In 2020 the forced isolation of pandemic-related lockdowns led many of us to attend virtual fitness classes and undertake home baking projects. Chantel Prat wondered why she wasn’t interested in taking part. “I couldn’t help but notice and be frustrated by the fact that my brain was responding to the pandemic in a way that seemed very different from the people around me,” she says.At the time Prat was writing her book The Neuroscience of You. Published in 2022, it explores how different brains make sense of the world. “I've always been interested in the relationship between the mind and the brain, at the level of the individual, not how do brains work in general,” she says.“Right now I feel like we’re living through a great social paradox,” she adds. “People are discussing the importance of having diverse minds and brains and decision-making spaces. But yet, we don’t seem to be getting any better at talking through our differences.”To illustrate her point, Prat, who is based at the University of Washingt