The last time I spoke with the consultant neurologist Prof Guy Leschziner, he was explaining the fine detail of the relationship between insomnia and dementia. The man is so highly regarded, I joked that quoting him was “a flex”, as if he were Harry Styles. Leschziner is a professor of neurology and sleep medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals, and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. He’s also the author of The Nocturnal Brain.
Today, we’re meeting in KCL’s Science Gallery Café in central London, and sleep isn’t on the menu. But gluttony, greed and sloth — behaviours that often come into sharp focus around Christmas — certainly are. These transgressions feature in Leschziner’s most recent book, Seven Deadly Sins: The Biology of Being Human.It feels like a segue from his specialisation, but it’s actually an expansion, he explains. “The way that we behave is entirely as a consequence of how our brains are wired.”
