BrainBlog

From The Guardian's website, with a podcast to follow: Memory and amnesia in the movies by Mo Castandi Neurophilosophy 13 February 2012 Read the full article

Narrative accounts like this are not common, but still excellent reading for students of neuropsychology: A Mind "Surrounded by a Moat": A First-person Account of Cognitive Impairment in Multiple Sclerosis Cogn Behav Neurol . 2011 Nov 29; Anonymous , Stern EB Abstract This is a first-person account of the cognitive impairments-in speaking, writing, and thinking-caused by multiple sclerosis in a professional writer. The patient explains how she has worked around her deficits in rebuilding her life over the 18 years since her diagnosis. Her personal account is woven together with her clinical history, including her neuropsychological testing and magnetic resonance imaging results. A companion article giving perspectives on the case was written by a cognitive neuroscientist who has been studying some of the types of deficits reported by the patient. PMID: 22134193 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

WBUR Boston has, this week, run a series of presentations about Alzheimer's disease. Here is the WBUR webpage that described their programming: WBUR Boston "Fade to Darkness" webpage

Available for streaming and as a podcast, from WNYC: "Diane Ackerman's One Hundred Names for Love" Listen 22 April 2011 WNYC Leonard Lopate Show "Diane Ackerman talks about her husband, Paul West’s, stroke and long recovery. He was afflicted with aphasia—loss of language—and Diane, frustrated with traditional therapies, relied on her scientific understanding of language and the brain to guide Paul back to the world of words. Her book One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing is an account of stroke, aphasia, and recovery, as well a love story."

From BBC Cambridgeshire : Alzheimers: Why Terry Pratchett feels good 15 February 2010 Read the full report

My brain abscess and me I had no idea I had a potentially fatal infection. Now, after my life-saving surgery, I will never take my health for granted again Tim Lusher The Guardian Tuesday 3 November 2009 Read Tim's narrative report here . [snip] "Finally, on Tuesday morning, someone realises something is horribly wrong. My GP sees immediately that my gait is clumsy, my focus wild, my speech slurring. She sends me straight to A&E at the Royal London hospital and phones ahead to order a brain scan. There, I collapse gratefully into the care of doctors and nurses." [snip]

Early Saturday morning, Gav C, the father of a now-deceased young boy named Tom, spent his hour for the One and Other Antony Gormley project from the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square describing life with his son. It is a narrative extraordinary in its directness. I recommend its viewing for any student training to work with young children with disabilities. You will learn something from it. To view it: Gav C. on the Fourth Plinth

From The Times (UK): Case study: ‘It’s hard to recognise the man I married’ Judith Magill’s retirement dreams were dashed when her husband, Patrick, had Parkinson's disease diagnosed aged 57 21 September 2009 [snip] "People die with Parkinson’s disease, not of it,” said the specialist to my husband, Patrick, when he got the diagnosis at the age of 57. He was upbeat, though leaving us in no doubt that the condition would worsen. Parkinson’s would nibble away at Patrick’s physical and, if we were unlucky, his mental reactions. It would fundamentally change our lives after just two years of marriage. [snip] Read the full piece

Just finished reading three excellent books with neuro themes, one a work of fiction and the other two are narrative accounts: "Still Alice" by Lisa Genova (available in paperback by iUniverse Press), is a very accurate dramatic fictional account of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. "Insomniac" by Gayle Greene is a great account of the world of insomnia, from the vantage point of individuals living with sleep disorders (including the author) and from the vantage point of the clinical researchers who study the condition and who work on drug development and other facets of diagnosis, understanding, and treatment. Finally, "Can't Remember What I Forgot" by Sue Halpern , self described as a "behind-the-scenes foray into the world of cutting-edge memory research." It lives up to that description and does so in a very readable manner. "Insomniac" is published by the University of California Press and "Can't Remember ......