Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, April 2018For more than 30 years as a neuroscientist, I (B.L.) have studied mental illness, in particular schizophrenia, a devastating disease that often makes it difficult for patients to distinguish between what is real and what is not. So it was with some irony that, three years ago, I myself ended up losing my mind, losing touch with what was happening around me. In the long run, I have come to see that terrifying journey, which I detail in my book, The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind, as a gift, both personally and professionally.
In January 2015, two years after I became director of the Human Brain Collection Core at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), I was diagnosed with brain metastatic melanoma and given four to seven months to live. But as an athlete and a breast cancer survivor, I had no intention of giving up easily. After brain surgery and radiation, I entered a clinical immunotherapy trial for patients with melanoma brain tumors at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Throughout the trial, I continued to work full-time at my office in Bethesda, Maryland, putting in long days overseeing my large staff, reviewing scientific articles, and managing the surging demand from researchers across the country to use our brain tissue samples. But unbeknownst to me or ...
