Generally Lipska’s husband, children, and grandchildren are presented quite stereotypically in her book. Her grandsons are adorable; her son, tall and handsome; and her daughter is beautiful and intelligent. I found myself occasionally wondering how Lipska, clearly a high-achieving Type-A personality, would manage if she had to describe children who were not athletic high achievers like herself. I also wondered what the descriptions of family might have been like if they'd been written by a writer other than McArdle--one more sensitive to language and nuance, who could tease compelling details out of her subject. It made for a detached read. Her access to medical facilities that most people in the world would never have access to and the way she expected that access was revolting, and she could not believe she had to wait for things. A whole hour in a waiting room! What was even more surprising to me was how her family - Polish scientists who had immigrated to the US 25 years earlier (her personal family story is fascinating without surviving two cancers - she also had breast cancer earlier ) - also failed to be alarmed by her increasing anger and frustration, her forgetting how to cook her favorite meals, and eventually even do simple math - until she had progressed significantly. One interesting side to her impaired frontal-temporal function was a loss of emotion - she didn't seem to care one bit about the fact that she was dying. She recalls feeling pretty happy most days, and completely unconcerned. That's encouraging to me actually. And that's not even the worst part. OK, you enter a clinical trial because you believe it will benefit you. Clinical trials are meticulously designed and exclusion criteria exist in part to empower a specific intended analysis. By entering the trial under false circumstances, you are jeopardizing the results and potentially the possibility of this drug getting to market. When you had your brain swelling, that very serious adverse event is thoroughly reported. When reviewed by the FDA, such a serious side effect may cause them to decide not to proceed with further trials of this drug. You are potentially sabotaging the release of this drug, and its potential benefit to many patients, by falsifying your information. Also, just considering local consequences, you could have taken the clinical trial spot for someone who could have actually benefitted from it. I mean, I get it, the author was desperate at this point, eager for anything that would help. But, bottom line, it was a very selfish decision.

Faptul că avem aceleași celule nervoase de la începutul până la sfârșitul vieții noastre poate fi unul dintre motivele pentru care ne considerăm pe sine ca fiind ,,noi". Ceea ce totuși se poate schimba sunt conexiunile dintre celule și dintre regiunile țesutului cerebral. Unele legături sunt mai puternice, altele dispar, altele se strică. Dacă o regiune a creierului nu mai funcționează cum trebuie, între celule pot apărea noi conexiuni care să ne ajute să recuperăm, într-o proporție mai mică sau mai mare, funcția alterată. Dar, în acest fel, se schimbă oare esența noastră?" Lipska's expertise helped her understand her symptoms when she developed metastatic brain cancer in 2015, at the age of 63. Lipska - who had previously been treated for breast cancer and melanoma (skin cancer) - realized something was wrong when she was preparing for 2015's 'Winter Conference on Brain Research' in Montana. Reaching out to turn on her computer, Lipska noticed that her hand 'disappeared' when she moved it to the right and 'reappeared' when she moved it to the left. Many thanks go to Barbara Lipska, Houghton Mifflin, and Netgalley for the free copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review. I made short work of this one. Was totally absorbed in her story. I find anything to do with the mind fascinating. It can be our best friend or our worst enemy. Yet, so little is known about this miraculous organ, the control center of what makes us who we are. The author is the head of the NIH, studying the brains of those with mental deficits, among them schitzophrenia. She had besten cancer twice, was an avid marathon and triathlon partcipant, when she found out she had a melanoma that had spread to her brain. Despite the many years studying the brains, she didn't recognize her own symptoms, but she was in for the fight of her life. I applaud the author for sharing a story that must have been very hard to relive/write about. However, there were a couple issues that made it hard to enjoy this book.Barbara Lipska was born, raised, and educated in Poland before she immigrated to the United States in 1989 to do post-doctoral studies at Maryland's 'National Institute of Mental Health' (NIMH). In 2013 Lipska became 'Director of the Human Brain Collection Core' at NIMH, which secures post-mortem brains for research about the brain and behavior. Amintirile pe termen lung sunt puse deoparte de creierele noastre și sunt păstrate în strânsă legătură cu trăiri emoționale, pentru că pot fi importante pentru supraviețuire. Informațiile stocate în memoria pe termen scurt sunt mai degrabă evenimente temporare care așteaptă să fie categorizate și evaluate. Dacă sunt importante, vor fi stocate. Dacă nu, nu primesc validarea pentru a fi reținute și se pierd." An advance digital copy was provided by NetGalley and author Barbara K. Lipska for my honest review. 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. După ce am aflat asta, nu mi-a mai păsat deloc de ea, așa că nu am simțit niciun fel de emoție. Ca parteneră a lui de atâția ani, să nu înțelegi de ce reacționează așa?! Ca om, să nu înțelegi ce le face ideea de moarte oamenilor?! În calitate de om de știință, care cercetează creierul de câteva decenii, să nu înțelegi că și tumorile aferente cancerului, implicit tratamentele, pot afecta creierul, determinând schimbări de atitudine? În fine, dezgustătoare purtarea ei. Eu oricum nu sunt impresionată de poveștile oamenilor bogați despre cum au supraviețuit pentru că au fost optimiști. Și săracii ar fi optimiști, dacă ar avea acces la cei mai buni și scumpi medici, dar ei preferă să fie realiști.

refusing to seek help for lymphedema (swelling) in her arm, then yelling at the therapist and storming out when she finally went for treatment. This woman was a Polish immigrant and of the highest intellect. She ran her own brain study clinic, which makes what happened to her all the more ironic. She was a strong athlete and excelled at several activities. She cooked dinner every night for her family. But she lost all of that and more when she developed brain tumors. Her harrowing tale of treatment and recovery is told in this book. When discussing her first husband’s diagnosis and eventual (1985) death from the very same cancer she would later fight, Lipska mentions that in the Poland of the time, cancer was highly stigmatized. A diagnosis of malignancy was viewed as a sign of weakness and a loss of control over one’s life. No cancer patient discussed his condition with friends, or even with family. One has the sense in reading her memoir that this kind of attitude continued to affect (or, maybe, “infect”) Lipska herself. She states that her typical response to emergencies is to throw herself “into a rational, organized plan, and grasp whatever control” she can. She also writes that (earlier in her life) after breast cancer treatment, she was up and about on the fourth day and that she never failed to cook a meal when undergoing chemotherapy. While receiving treatment for her brain tumours, she remained physically active; she even ran a five-kilometer race a few weeks after her first radiation treatment, placing fourth in her age group. I suppose I should be impressed by this, but I honestly found Lipska’s drive bizarre and even alarming at times. Barbara Lipska is the director of the Human Brain Bank at the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, D.C. An internationally recognized researcher in human brain development and mental illness, Dr. Lipska has a doctorate in Medical Sciences from the Medical School of Warsaw. becoming irrationally furious at Amtrak when her train was delayed, and talking about it for days, to everyone in sight.The author was not mad, she had deficits more in line with loss of function rather than the peculiar function that comes from psychosis where people are operating from a different frame of reference. Her speciality is schizophrenia but I just couldn't see that she became anything like that or at least not like any I have known or whose books I have read.