When a Brain Scientist Suffers a Stroke

This is a very great and important movie from a brain scientist - Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor.

As a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, Jill Bolte Taylor has always known more about brains than most people. But when a brain hemorrhage triggered her own stroke, she suddenly had a front-row seat on the deterioration of the brain.

Dr. Taylor recounts the details of her stroke and the amazing insights she gained from it in a riveting 18-minute video of her speech at the Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference in Monterey, Calif., last month. Her fascinating lecture includes a detailed explanation of the differences between the left and right sides of the brain, complete with an incredibly cool prop — a real human brain.
Imagine what it would be like to be totally disconnected from your brain chatter,” she said. “I felt a sense of peacefulness.”

Dr. Taylor’s lecture is challenging and thought-provoking, and I’d encourage you to take the time to watch it in its entirety. It took Dr. Taylor eight years to recover from the stroke, but she said she was motivated by a desire to share her experience of stroke and recovery, particularly her increased awareness of the right side of her brain. “I realized what a tremendous gift this experience could be, what a stroke of insight this could be to how we live our lives, and it motivated me to recover,” she said.
(Copyright by the New York Times)