March 2018 Read/3

Title: Into the Gray Zone: A Neuroscientist Explores the Border Between Life and Death
Author: Owen, Adrian
Call Number:616.849 O97I 2017
Book Description from amazon:
In this startling and thought-provoking book, which will remind readers of works by Oliver Sacks and Atul Gawande, a world-renowned neuroscientist reveals his controversial, groundbreaking work with patients whose brains were previously thought vegetative or non-responsive but turn out—in up to 20 percent of cases—to be vibrantly alive, existing in the “Gray Zone.”

Into the Gray Zone takes readers to the edge of a dazzling, humbling frontier in our understanding of the brain: the so-called “gray zone” between full consciousness and brain death. People in this middle place have sustained traumatic brain injuries or are the victims of stroke or degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Many are oblivious to the outside world, and their doctors believe they are incapable of thought. But a sizeable number are experiencing something different: intact minds adrift deep within damaged brains and bodies. An expert in the field, Adrian Owen led a team that, in 2006, discovered this lost population and made medical history. Scientists, physicians, and philosophers have only just begun to grapple with the implications.

Following Owen’s journey of exciting medical discovery, Into the Gray Zone asks some tough and terrifying questions, such as: What is life like for these patients? What can their families and friends do to help them? What are the ethical implications for religious organizations, politicians, the Right to Die movement, and even insurers? And perhaps most intriguing of all: in defining what a life worth living is, are we too concerned with the physical and not giving enough emphasis to the power of thought? What, truly, defines a satisfying life?

This book is about the difference between a brain and a mind, a body and a person. It is about what these fascinating borderlands between life and death have taught us about being human.
My Read:
It's a good read. Unlike the other books I have read, I had to read this book from chapter one all the way to the last chapter so that I would have ideas what's been mentioned in the previous chapter.

March 2018 Read/2

Title: The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: the History of the Human Brain
Author: Kean, Sam
Call Number: 617.48023 K24T 2014
Book Description from amazon.com:
Early studies of the functions of the human brain used a simple method: wait for misfortune to strike-strokes, seizures, infectious diseases, lobotomies, horrendous accidents-and see how the victim coped. In many cases survival was miraculous, and observers could only marvel at the transformations that took place afterward, altering victims' personalities. An injury to one section can leave a person unable to recognize loved ones; some brain trauma can even make you a pathological gambler, pedophile, or liar. But a few scientists realized that these injuries were an opportunity for studying brain function at its extremes. With lucid explanations and incisive wit, Sam Kean explains the brain's secret passageways while recounting forgotten stories of common people whose struggles, resiliency, and deep humanity made modern neuroscience possible.
My Read:
     As I close this book one of the cases stated in it stays with me. It's listed in the chapter named "Wiring and Rewiring." Pedro, father of Doctor Bach-y-Rita, suffered a massive stroke in 1959 and was left half paralyzed and speechless. George, Bach-y-Rita's brother who was also a doctor, refused to send their father to a nursing home suggested by the patient's doctors. George designed his own rehab regimen. George made Pedro crawl like an infant at first, learning how to move each limb again, before gradually working him up to his feet. Then he made Pedro do household chores such as sweeping the porch and scrubbing pots and pans. Pedro struggled and appeared to make little progress, but the repetitive motions eventually retrained his brain. Not only did he regain the ability to talk and walk, he also resumed his teaching job, remarried, and started hiking again. His brain proved plastic enough to reroute the cues for walking and talking around the ravaged tissue. Instead of routing signals from A to B, it now routed them from A to C and then C to B.--page 90

March 2018 Read

Title: The Scalpel and the Soul: Encounters with Surgery, the Supernatural, and the Healing Power of Hope
Author: Hamilton, Allan J. M.D.
Call Number: 617.48092 H217YH 2009
Book Description from amazon.com:
A Harvard-educated neurosurgeon reveals his experiences—in and out of the operating room—with apparitions, angels, exorcism, after-death survival, and the miracle of hope. For the millions who have enjoyed Proof of Heaven, Heaven is Real, To Heaven and Back, andGetting to Heaven—an inspiring tale from where the veil between life and death is often at its thinnest.

The Scalpel and the Soul explores how premonition, superstition, hope, and faith not only become factors in how patients feel but can change outcomes. It validates the spiritual manifestations physicians see every day and empowers patients to voice their spiritual needs when they seek medical help. Finally, it addresses the mysterious, attractive powers the soul exerts during life-threatening events.

My Read:

     Chapter Eleven is titled "Thread of Hope." It's about what happened to a young brain tumor patient when cruel message had hit home, when hope he had been hold was taken away. "Donald, you remember once you asked me to tell you straight when it was time to go fishing?" the doctor asked. Donald nodded and looked down at his feet. "Well, it's time. Now, Donald." Donald didn't look up. He just sat there with his head bowed with tears falling onto his lap.---page 139 The next morning Donald's mother called the doc telling him her son, Donald had expired during the night. He was gone. The doctor said on the same page that 'He is convinced Donald died that night because the hope that had sustained him was taken away. He mistakenly cut the thin thread of hope that had kept him alive and aloft.' Indeed, hope keeps a person strongly motivated and sustains powerful will to survive and live.

     Chapter Thirteen is named "For the Love of God." It's a about child with poorly treated hydrocephalus and his grandmother who was suffering from IV stage of ovarian cancer.The grandmother was informed by her doctors that she only had 4 months to live and her grandson would never be "normal." But this grandmother who has strong belief and trust in God asked her doctors to pray with her and told her doctors that she expected her grandson to earn a wage, keep a checkbook, and marry and have a family. What happened after the conversation with her doctors was incredulous: Less than three years after she was declared unlikely to live more than four months, this grandmother attended her own doctor's funeral. Her grandson recovered intellectual abilities and makes birdhouses for a living. He also got married and his grandmother was at his wedding. The grandmother said the following to a group of cancer patients: You need to be a realist to believe in miracles, because one can only see the real truth with the heart and not with the eyes."--page 165     

     Chapter Twelve is titled "Singing in the Brain." It's about a neurologist named Norm Mueller. Dr. Mueller had a theory and observations on aphasia and singing. It seemed to him that there are different legions and areas in the brain to process functions of speech and singing. The author was treating a renowned researcher on Alzheimer's who was suffering from aphasia. This patient doctor had to give a speech in a ceremony to award him for his contribution in the Alzheimer's research. Delivery the award speech in singing earned him a standing ovation. ---page 151-152

     I expect to reread this book in the future. It's a good read.