LYNNE JETER

Brain Scientist Shares Surprisingly Clear Details of Stroke, Recovery

HATTIESBURG--Cardiologists, neurologists, surgeons and their spouses leaned closer when Jill Bolte Taylor, MD, took the stage at the 4^th Annual Spirit of Women Spring Event at the Lake Terrace Convention Center in Hattiesburg on April 7. They were eager to hear every word she shared while recalling surprisingly clear details about how her brain functions changed during her stroke in 1996—and the long, winding road to recovery that spanned nearly a decade.

"They were fascinated to hear her talk," said Millie Swan, spokesperson for event host Forrest General Hospital, and organizer of the event. "Dr. Taylor's story is so insightful in itself. The fact that she's a brain scientist … and that she was aware of the changes taking place in her body while having a stroke … and then writing so eloquently about exactly what stroke survivors may be experiencing and what they really need from healthcare professionals … is amazing."

Taylor was a 37-year-old neuroanatomist working at Harvard and researching the brains of the severely mentally ill when she had a massive hemorrhagic stroke. She was able to note as one brain function after another shut down, and silently marvel at the process as a scientist, even while experiencing a life-threatening medical emergency. Taylor's experiences with the debilitating stroke and eight-year journey to recovery represent the heart of her memoir, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey (Viking Press, 2008), which is quickly becoming required reading at many medical and nursing schools around the country. TIME Magazine named Taylor among 100 Most Influential People in the World for 2008. 

"I did have an advantage because I believed in the ability of this beautiful organ to heal itself," said Taylor. "Rarely do you find a medical professional who believes this and promotes this attitude."

Hours after her stroke, Taylor was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was diagnosed with a rare arterio-venous malformation (AVM). Two and a half weeks later, surgeons removed a golf-ball sized clot that was placing pressure on the language centers of her brain's left hemisphere.

The hemorrhage in Taylor's left frontal lobe severely impacted the ability of her left brain to sort and process information and quelled the constant chatter of her mind's inner narrative. As a result, she lost the ability to speak, walk, understand language, remember life events, and distinguish the boundaries between solid objects.

However, as her left brain entered into darkness, her right brain flourished, and she entered into a euphoric, peaceful state during which she was aware of the interconnectivity of the universe.

Because the feeling of nirvana was so seductive, Taylor said it required deep inner strength and strong survival instincts to call for help. When it became clear she would survive, it required those same urges to decide to recover.

Early on the road to recovery, Taylor made a startling discovery: What she needed the most from her medical team during her hospital stay was uninterrupted sleep so her compromised neurocircuitry could begin repairing its broken connections.

"The brain knows better than anyone else what it needs to recover," she said. "If the person is exhausted because he is on stimulation overload and his brain is not capable of making sense of the incoming stimulation, then let that brain go to sleep and awake on its own time."

Taylor pointed out that a typical sleep cycle lasts 90 to 110 minutes.

"People who are not allowed to go into REM sleep become psychotic," she said. "It would be so easy to shift taking vitals from every hour to every other hour so the person could get their much-needed REM."

Taylor also needed medical caregivers to "look me in the eye, speak to me directly, and treat me with respect," she said.

With her right brain dominant, she was particularly sensitive to positive and negative energy.

"At that point of illness for me, there were only two types of people: those who brought me energy and those who took it away," she said. "I needed (people) to take responsibility for the energy they brought me. It was really important that my caregivers realize that I had shifted into a consciousness of deep inner peace and they had to make themselves really attractive energy for me to want to work as hard as I had to work, to try to connect with me."

Taylor encourages clinicians to ask themselves: Based on which circuits of a stroke survivor's brain are no longer functioning, what has this patient gained due to the neurological dis-inhibition?

The most exciting discovery Taylor made as a result of her stroke was that neuroanatomically speaking, holding onto negative emotions and thoughts is entirely optional.