...the same brain structure that I sabotaged in thousands of rodents will begin to malfunction, spectacularly, in my own brain. [loc. 422]
Barbara Lipska, director of the Human Brain Collection Core at the National Institute of Mental Health, developed a model of how brain damage can cause schizophrenia. Then she began to experience visual distrubances and behavourial changes, which turned out to be caused by tumours in her own brain.
Lipska feels that her 'brush with madness' gave her insight into 'what it's actually like to lose your mind and then recover'. Her accounts -- necessarily incomplete, as she can't directly recall the emotions she experienced before the tumours were treated -- of how she changed, and the effect her illness had on her family, were disturbing and poignant. I also found them horribly relatable, since my mother underwent what I experienced as a massive personality change following brain surgery. At the time I think this was explained to me, or interpreted by me, as a result of constant pain and sensory changes: now I wonder if it was perhaps a result of physical damage, as per Dr Lipska's experiences.
There's quite a bit of biological and neurological detail in this book, often repeated: it's balanced by Lipska's accounts of her own life before and after the tumours, and her recklessness in undergoing treatment without disclosing pertinent test results. I now have a better understanding of how physical damage, including swelling, can affect brain function and personality, and of how precise the treatments for such damage need to be.
Do not read this book if you have a headache. It will not improve matters.
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