Reading & Thinking
Books, papers, philosophy, science. These are the notes I make in the margins and what happens when I follow them further.
Reading Camus with a pen, the same thought kept appearing in different forms. The real suffering in this novel is not the deaths or the quarantine. It is the imagination turning on itself. Memory corrupts what it touches. Hope becomes a form of torture. This is what I found when I followed those margin notes further.
Read essayThe real instrument of suffering in this novel is not the disease. It is the imagination. Memory corrupts what it touches. Hope becomes torture. The plague was never the point.
A critical analysis of Holzel et al. (2011) on the tension between holistic psychological interventions and the reductionist nature of neuroimaging.
Neuroscience, psychology, law and the brain. All six essays.
Archive
The real instrument of suffering in this novel is not the disease. It is the imagination. Memory corrupts what it touches. Hope becomes torture. The plague was never the point.
A critical analysis through the lens of experimental design, emotional regulation, and applied neuroscience.
Mindfulness is not self-care. It is structural intervention. The same way physiotherapy teaches your body to walk again, mindfulness teaches your brain to pause before panic.
Courts often misunderstand what remorse truly looks like. Based on a conversation with Dr. Colleen M. Berryessa, Rutgers University.
Psychopathy is not about cold-blooded killers. It is about brains wired differently. On serotonin, the MAOA-L gene, and the prefrontal cortex.
What if persistent antisocial behaviour is not about bad choices, but brain structure? On Carlisi et al. (2020, 2022).
Hi! I am Mia Bakunowicz, an independent researcher, aspiring neuroscientist, and someone endlessly fascinated by one question: What makes us who we are?
Some people look up at the stars. I have always looked inward.
The brain fascinates me because it orchestrates every thought, emotion, and action, and yet remains so deeply unknowable, even to itself. How much of who we are is choice, and how much is biology? How often do we judge without understanding?
My fascination spans the full spectrum, from the ordinary patterns that guide daily life to the extremes that challenge everything we think we know. Psychopathy, creativity, memory, perception, and emotional resilience.
Because the more I learn, the more I realise: the brain is not just an organ. It is a story, a puzzle, a universe, and I cannot stop exploring it.
The Margin is where I dive deep into the mind, through research, essays, reflections, and experiments inspired by the books, papers, and ideas I explore.
Here, I break down complex neuroscience and psychology into personal insights, connecting the science to the ways we think, feel, and behave.
This is for anyone curious about the brain, fascinated by human behaviour, or who just wants to see what happens when questions meet curiosity and when curiosity meets a notebook full of reflections.
I hope my curiosity sparks yours and that, as you read, you begin to see the brain not just as an organ, but as a canvas: complex, messy, and always worth studying.
Let's question, learn, and challenge ideas. Together.
Mia :)