The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: A Memoir of Madness and Recovery

(Paperback)

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Analyzing the science of the mind and the biology of the brain alongisde Dr Lipska's own extraordinary story of madness, this is a powerful account of what happens when the brain fails. 'Completely compelling and powerful, and hard to put down.' Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, prize-winning author of Inventing Ourselves- The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain - Who are we if our brain fails - How do we think - How do we feel - How do we move, if we move at all - What happens when we lose our mind When renowned neuroscientist Barbara Lipska's melanoma spread to her brain it started to play tricks on her. The expert on mental illness - a specialist in how the brain operates - experienced what it is like to go mad. Analyzing the science of the mind and the biology of the brain alongisde Dr Lipska's own extraordinary story, this is a fascinating account of what happens when the brain goes awry. 'Oliver Sacks-meets-When Breath Becomes Air ... Barbara Lipska's remarkable story illuminates the many mysteries of our fragile yet resilient brains.' Lisa Genova, bestselling author of Still Alice and Every Note Played

Reviews

Fascinating and irresistibly page-turning, The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind is an Oliver Sacks-meets-When Breath Becomes Air account of insanity caused by over a dozen brain tumors. Barbara Lipska's remarkable story illuminates the many mysteries of our fragile yet resilient brains and through her harrowing journey of recovery, she shows us that nothing is impossible.

* Lisa Genova, bestselling author of Still Alice and Every Note Played *
In this fascinating book, a neuroscientist describes the terrifying symptoms she suffered as a result of multiple brain tumours. 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 illness that she spends her life studying... Completely compelling and powerful, and hard to put down. * Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, author of Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain *
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 bestselling author of The Smartest Kids in the World and The Unthinkable *
A superb memoir from a highly respected neuroscientist ... [a] remarkable account of sanity lost and regained. * Dr Frank Vertosick, author of When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgery *
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 bestselling author of Every Patient Tells a Story *

Author Bio

Dr Barbara K. Lipska is Director of the Human Brain Collection Core at America's National Institute of Mental Health. She is an internationally recognized leader in human postmortem research and animal modeling of schizophrenia. Her primary research interests are in mental illness and human brain development. She conducts gene expression and epigenetic studies in postmortem human brains to investigate mechanisms of brain maturation, the effects of genetic variation on transcription and DNA methylation, and molecular mechanisms underlying schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses. Her job involves the supervision of the collection of more than one thousand human brains, and she coordinates the donation process and distribution of well-characterized brain specimens. Information from these specimens is vital in improving our understanding of the causes of neuropsychiatric disorders and developing new treatments for these disorders. A marathon runner and a triathlete, she is a mother of two children, both doctors. She lives in Virginia with her husband Mirek Gorski.