The Mind Mappers
Friendship, Betrayal and the Obsessive Quest to Chart the Brain
The riveting true story of the star-crossed friendship between two neuroscientists—one famous, the other forgotten—who mapped the brain, but lost each other.
In the early 1920s, when neurosurgery was more likely to be a death sentence than a cure, two men revolutionized the study of the brain: Wilder Penfield and William Cone. Drawn together by their shared fascination with the “undiscovered country” inside our heads, the surgeons formed a partnership and within ten years established the Montreal Neurological Institute in a Gothic stone hospital on the slope of a mountain. The Neuro soon became the world’s leading centre for neurological study, attracting men and women from across the globe to a booming mid-century city.
But their success came at the cost of…
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May 27, 2025ERIC ANDREW-GEE is the Quebec correspondent for The Globe and Mail, based in Montreal, and a former staff reporter for the Toronto Star. He is the winner of two National Newspaper Awards. His work has appeared in magazines including The Walrus, Toronto Life and The New Republic. This is his first book.