The Neurology Lounge

In this episode I am joined by Harvard-trained neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor, author of the best-selling illness memoir titled My Stroke of Insight. This now classical book spent 63 weeks on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list, and is still routinely the #1 book in the category Stroke in the Amazon marketplace.

We discuss her experience of suffering from a stroke in which she bled into the left side of her brain from a vascular malformation. She passionately recounted the insights she gained from this in terms of the benefits of right hemisphere brain function.

This podcast goes to show why she was one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” in 2008, why she was the premiere guest on Oprah Winfrey’s “Soul Series” webcast, and why her 2008 TEDTalk was the first to ever go viral - now with well over 27.5 million views.

In this podcast, I explore the phenomenon of haemorrhagic stroke. I start with the anecdote of Oscar award winning actress Patricia Neal, then the wife of writer Roald Dahl, as narrated by neurologist Tom Solomon in his book 'Roald Dahl's Marvellous Medicine'.

Neal's case symbolised the onset and course of a ruptured cerebral aneurysm which presented with the classical thunderclap headache.

The podcast also uses patient memoirs to illustrate the other causes of bleeding in the brain such as ruptured arteriovenous malformations. I also discussed the investigations, and the medical and surgical treatments of the vascular disorders covered in the podcast.

In this podcast, I count down 10 measures people can take to protect their nerves. These are usually the avoidance of habitual deeds people engage in, mindless of their detrimental effect on the nervous system.

In this episode, Sebastian Groes joins me to discuss his experience of stroke as narrated in his memoir titled Right in the Head. He explores the physical deficits, the emotional turmoil that accompanied his stroke, and the impact it had on his family, and on return to work.

Bas is Professor of English Literature at the University of Wolverhampton, where he leads a Computational Literary Studies project on inclusivity and diversity. This is an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded projected titled Novel Perceptions: towards an inclusive canon.

At Wolverhampton, he is also Director of the Centre for Transnational and Transcultural Research and works with 6 PhD students. His research often features on the BBC: he has written, for instance, about the need to rethink literary genre, fake news during the Corona crisis, and gendered responses to the pandemic.

Bas has published over ten academic books and edits a series on contemporary fiction for Bloomsbury Academic, Contemporary Critical Perspectives. He is fascinated by the ways in which human behaviour, memory and thinking are changing in the twenty-first century.

He leads The Memory Network, edited the ground-breaking book Memory in the Twenty-First Century and has written on information overload.

In probably his last recorded interview held in May 2024, science journalist Steve Silberman discusses everything autism, from its history to savant syndrome. And he does so with the refreshing clarity, knowledge, and insight that made him one the best informed people about the condition.

I regret that Steve did not have a chance to see the podcast before its release as he sadly passed away on 28 August 2024.

Steve Silberman was an award-winning science writer whose articles have appeared in Wired, the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Financial Times, the Boston Globe, the MIT Technology Review, Salon, Shambhala, and many other publications.

Steve Silberman's TED talk, “The Forgotten History of Autism,” has been viewed more than a million times and translated into 25 languages.

Silberman also won a gold record from the Recording Industry Association of America for co-producing the Grateful Dead’s career-spanning boxset, So Many Roads (1965-1995), which was Rolling Stone’s box set of the year. As a young man, he was Allen Ginsberg’s teaching assistant at Naropa University.

I hope this podcast episode will be a lasting tribute to his legacy.

In this podcast, I discuss the enigmatic subject of autism. I use such patient memoirs as that of Valarie Gilpeer, titled I Have Been Buried Under Years of Dust, to explore the diverse facets of this intriguing phenomenon.

I cover such autistic traits as poor eye contact, limited verbal output, focussed attention and self-stimulating behaviour. I also explore the manifestations of autism in adults, with a look at how such autistic tendencies as literal interpretation of speech and poor understanding of power structures impair their social interactions.

The podcast also explores the history of the scientific understanding of autism with explorations of such physicians as Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner. Prominent personalities that also feature in the podcast are Temple Grandin and Lorna Wing.

I also discuss the theme of savant syndrome with references to such autistic savants as Kim Peek, the Mount Everest of memory, on whom the film, Rain Man, was based.

In this podcast I discuss the clinical manifestations and management of ischaemic stroke.

I also use insightful patient memoirs, such as that of Diane Ackerman titled One Hundred Names for Love, to illustrate the suddenness of stroke, its diverse and occasionally vague manifestations, and it lived experience.

The podcast reviews the mimics of stroke and the investigations of its causes and risk factors. Apart from hypertension, diabetes, and atrial fibrillation, these include holes and aneurysms in the heart, and tears in the big arteries of the neck.

In exploring atherosclerosis, I discuss why this is a uniquely human phenomenon. I also reference two historical cases of stroke - those of Joseph Stalin and Woodrow Wilson.

In this episode, I discuss motor neuron disease with neurologist Kevin Talbot. We explore his dual clinical and research perspectives of the disease as portrayed in his co-authored book.

Kevin Talbot is Professor of Motor Neuron Biology, and Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford He is a clinician scientist with 25 years of experience of diagnosing and managing MND and related diseases.

Kevin Talbot leads the Neurodegeneration and Cerebrovascular Theme of the Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, and the main focus of his laboratory research is to improve pre-clinical models of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, focussing on early stage disease.

His laboratory has identified disease-specific phenotypes in motor neurons which provide the tools for screening drugs of potential therapeutic benefit in ALS.

His research is closely linked to work being carried out by his Oxford colleagues on biomarkers with application to experimental medicine studies to accelerate translation of promising drugs.

In this short podcast, I count down the top 10 characteristics that suggest to neurologists that there may be a sinister cause behind any headache

In this podcast episode, I explore the management of motor neurone disease. I deploy touching memoirs to show how some patients have ameliorated the devastation of MND on their lives and the lives of their families.

I also discuss the variants and mimics of MND, the hazards of breaking the bad news of the diagnosis, and the recommendations for doing this satisfactorily. I review the conventional treatments of MND such as riluzole and edaravone, and the cutting-edge genetic treatment, Tofersen.

I also explore the practicality and ethics of mechanical ventilation to sustain life in the terminal stage of the disease.