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The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery Kindle Edition
Neuroscientist Lipska was diagnosed early in 2015 with metastatic melanoma in her brain's frontal lobe. As the cancer progressed and was treated, she experienced behavioral and cognitive symptoms connected to a range of mental disorders, including dementia and her professional specialty, schizophrenia.
Lipska's family and associates were alarmed by the changes in her behavior, which she failed to acknowledge herself. Gradually, after a course of immunotherapy, Lipska returned to normal functioning, amazingly recalled her experience, and through her knowledge of neuroscience identified the ways in which her brain changed during treatment.
Lipska admits her condition was unusual; after recovery she was able to return to her research and resume her athletic training and compete in a triathalon. Most patients with similar brain cancers rarely survive to describe their ordeal. Lipska's memoir, coauthored with journalist Elaine McArdle, shows that strength and courage but also an encouraging support network are vital to recovery.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherMariner Books
- Publication dateApril 3, 2018
- File size6952 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
An iBooks Favorites selection for April Included in the Top Ten of Publishers Weekly's "Spring 2018 Announcements: Memoirs and Biographies" “A harrowing, intimately candid survivor's journey.” — Kirkus Reviews “Oliver Sacks meets When Breath Becomes Air in this fascinating, page-turning account of insanity. Barbara Lipska's remarkable story illuminates the many mysteries of our fragile yet resilient brains, and her harrowing journey and astonishing recovery show us that nothing is impossible.” — Lisa Genova, New York Times best-selling author of Still Alice and Every Note Played "A riveting science story about how brains go bad, interwoven with the remarkable personal story of one brain going spectacularly bad. A total nail-biter." — Lisa Sanders, New York Times best-selling author of Every Patient Tells a Story “A spellbinding investigation into the mysteries of the human brain, led by a scientist whose tenacity is as remarkable as her story.” — Amanda Ripley, New York Times best-selling author of The Smartest Kids in the World and The Unthinkable “A superb memoir from a highly respected neuroscientist who is uniquely qualified to describe her titanic battle against malignant melanoma of the brain. Barbara Lipska clearly believes in those miracles that can be achieved through medical science, and also has an iron resolve to survive. Both qualities underpin this remarkable account of sanity lost and regained.” — Frank Vertosick, author of When the Air Hits Your Brain "An extraordinary chronicle. Barbara Lipska's story is inspiring and painful, but most of all it is a tribute to the human spirit told with the insight of a scientist and the love of a truly compassionate soul. I was hooked from the first page and could not put this down until the final sentence." — Thomas Insel, cofounder and president of Mindstrong Health and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health "In this fascinating book, ?a neuroscientist? describes the terrifying symptoms she suffered as a result of multiple brain tumors. We learn about how the brain can produce ?bizarre and bewildering symptoms from the point of view of someone who has personal experience of aspects of the mental illnesses that she spends her life studying. The book is compelling and powerful, and hard to put down." — Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, professor of cognitive neuroscience, University College London "Diving inside some of the deepest mysteries of the human mind with someone who has spent her life studying exactly that, Barbara K. Lipska’s The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind describes the leading neuroscientist’s own descent into madness—triggered by an aggressive cancer that spread to her brain, miraculously retreated just months later, and left Lipska not only with her memories intact, but with a whole lot more insight (and even more questions) into the human brain." — Bustle, "14 Debut Books by Women Coming Out in 2018 That You Need in Your TBR Pile" —
About the Author
Emma Powell is a London-based actor and voice artist that has performed for some of the world's most renowned theater companies including Royal Shakespeare Company, Almeida, and The National Theatre, voiced characters for BBC radio dramas, as well as countless audio books, games and ads.
Barbara K. Lipska, Ph.D. is director of the Human Brain Collection Core at the National Institute of Mental Health, where she studies mental illness and human brain development. A native of Poland, she holds a Ph.D. in medical sciences from the Medical School of Warsaw, and is an internationally recognized leader in human postmortem research and animal modeling of schizophrenia. Before emigrating from Poland to the United States, Dr. Lipska was a researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology in Warsaw. She has been at NIMH since 1989 and has published over 120 papers in peer-reviewed journals. A marathon runner and a triathlete, she lives with her husband, Mirek Gorski, in Virginia.
Elaine McArdle is a UU World senior editor. An award-winning journalist with more than twenty years of experience, she has written for the Boston Globe and Boston Globe Magazine, Harvard Law Bulletin, Northeastern Law Magazine, and many others. She is a member of First Unitarian Church of Portland, Oregon, where she now lives.
Product details
- ASIN : B073XCG32V
- Publisher : Mariner Books; Reprint edition (April 3, 2018)
- Publication date : April 3, 2018
- Language : English
- File size : 6952 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 213 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #259,028 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #175 in Biographies of Medical Professionals (Kindle Store)
- #292 in Mental Illness
- #674 in Medical Professional Biographies
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Love writing, love my career as a journalist and author -- feel very fortunate to have so many wonderful people share their stories and lives with me
www.elainemcardle.com
Ph.D. in medical sciences, marathon runner and a triathlete.
Director of the Human Brain Collection Core at the NIMH.
www.barbaralipska.com
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One thing that I found oddly comforting was the fact that despite how incredibly healthy, educated, successful, and physically active and strong she was for her entire life, she still ended up with multiple cancer diagnoses. It reinforced the idea that there's so much in life we simply cannot control and gave me an odd sense of comfort to just go with the flow.
I feel hopeful knowing that there are people like Barbara and her colleagues who are studying our amazingly complex brain, and people like the many doctors she worked with during her ordeal who are learning how to treat folks dealing with issues of the brain. Hopefully the day is not too far away when we have a much better grasp on how to adequately manage mental illness and brain disorders.
This was definitely a compelling story, I read the entire book and a day and a half! Highly recommend.
I enjoyed the audio version so much that I bought the paper book to lend to people I know would enjoy it.
It's a mystery to me that anyone can give this mesmerizing book a negative review. But, I think that sometimes reviews say more about the reviewer than the book.
Top reviews from other countries

A compelling journey, hard to put down!




生まれ故郷のポーランドから長年の希望が叶い、異国の地アメリカで独立研究者として充実した科学者生活、そして夫や子供とともに幸せな家庭生活を送っていたBarbara K. Lipska。
趣味のマラソン、そしてトライアスロンに汗を流す日々。
その様な中にあって、乳癌、そして悪性黒色腫と戦い、そして寛解状態を維持していたある日のこと。
同名半盲(両側の視力の片側視野が欠ける現象)の症状が出現。そして、恐れていた悪性黒色腫の中枢神経転移症状であることが発覚。
そこから、、放射線性治療、免疫チェックポイント治療も効を奏さず、徐々に精神症状を発症。怒り、健忘や認知、そして方向感覚を含めた見当織失調症状。まさに中枢神経の高次脳機能障害がこれでもかこれでもかと出現。。。。
当の本人は何も自覚せず(ここがポイント!)、それに振り回される家族や周りの人々。この辺の中枢神経症状、認知症類縁症状の具体的記載は、まさしく神経学者である本人の記録の賜物。前頭葉から頭頂葉をはじめとした、いわゆる前頭側頭葉型認知症に類似の高次脳機能障害の具体的症状がリアルに、そしてそれらの高次機能障害が脳内の解剖学的異常によって起こることをまさに実感。
γナイフやその後の悪性黒色腫の分子治療(BRAFとMEKというシグナリング分子の活性型変異があることがわかり、それらの阻害分子標的薬を服用)で徐々に脳内の転移巣も縮小し、それと平行して以前の自分を取り戻す際の時の流れの記載はお見事な記載。
最後は家族で分担してのトライアスロン大会参加という、なんともお涙頂戴で終わるのもまあ嬉しい。
英文も極めて平易でとてもおすすめ。脳の機能と高次脳機能障害について改めて考えさせられ、日常の診療での視野が拡がった気にさせてくれる良書。おすすめ。