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Our guest Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor is a renowned grief expert, author, neuroscientist, and an associate professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, where she directs the Grief, Loss, and Social Stress (GLASS) Lab, which investigates the effects of grief on the brain and the body. In this episode, she discusses groundbreaking discoveries about what happens in our brain when we grieve, providing a new paradigm for understanding love, loss, and learning about the changes that occur in the brain during the grief process, and how we can develop a toolkit to go about restoring a meaningful life while grieving.

In her new book, The Grieving Brain, Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD, gives us a fascinating new window into one of the hallmark experiences of being human. O’Connor has devoted decades to researching the effects of grief on the brain. In this book, she makes cutting-edge neuroscience accessible through her contagious enthusiasm and guides us through how we encode love and grief. With love, our neurons help us form attachments to others; but with loss, our brain must come to terms with where our loved ones went or how to imagine a future that encompasses their absence.

Based on O’Connor’s own trailblazing neuroimaging work, research in the field, and her real-life stories, The Grieving Brain does what the best popular science books do, combining storytelling, accessible science, and practical knowledge that will help us better understand what happens when we grieve and how to navigate loss with more ease and grace.

Learn more at her website: https://www.maryfrancesoconnor.com/