Writing about the brain is one of the Black-Diamond challenges of science writing. We all think we know what’s going in our heads, and yet the cells and neurotransmitters and signal patterns don’t fit comfortably into our everyday metaphors. Linguist Mark Liberman at Language Log regularly writes devastating posts about how lousy a job journalists sometimes do writing about neuroscience news–especially when the research touches on our pat assumptions and stereotypes. (”See, women really do think differently…” etc.)

I’ve written a lot about the brain in the past (including a book about the dawn of neurology), but now I’m setting out to write a column every month for Discover about our gray matter. The first one