My Stroke of Insight by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor takes us through a major event in her life that completely changed everything about her. She became a new, different woman. Before her stroke, Dr. Taylor was at the prime of her career and life. She was a neuroanatomist working for Harvard Medical School, working as a member of the Harvard Brain Bank, and served on the board of directors for NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Her brother was inflicted with the neurological disease schizophrenia, which was a point of intrigue for her. She wondered, how could two people born from the same two parents, have completely different life experiences. 

Dr. Taylor starts us off by giving us a brief tour of the brain. Below is a diagram marked with the different lobes and structures. The pictures below are courtesy of pixabay.com

On the morning of her stroke, she was feeling different. She was unable to move properly and she struggled to do her daily routine, by the time she finally realized she was having a stroke, her brain cells had already beginning to die off. Particularly, on her left side. The left side of the brain contains Broca’s area, so her speech did not make any sense as cells began dying in this area. Broca’s area is located in the far backside of the frontal lobe, while Wernicke, the area of the brain responsible for comprehension is located in the temporal lobe.

Dr. Taylor didactically describes everything she is experiencing in great detail. I don’t want to give it away, but Wow! Just Wow! I also included her Ted Talk and Oprah interview below. She ended up having a left side hemorrhage, or hemorrhage on the left side of her brain. The hemorrhage was due to an untreated AVM, arteriovenous malformation. An arteriovenous malformation is when the arteries and blood vessels of the CNS, central nervous system, are connected in an abnormal way. Just imagine blood rushing through your large arteries, and then all of a sudden, the blood has to go through these tiny veins. Check out the illustration below…

This image is courtesy of the American Heart Association website, http://goo.gl/yFTnG9

After having surgery to fix her AVM, Dr. Jill Taylor is finally able to begin recovery, which takes 8 years.  She talks about how since so much of her left brain died, her right brain was now free to flourish and was not inhibited by the inhibitive nature of the left. She felt as if she is energy, part of the universe, and tried her hardest to keep away from things that gave off negative energy. She was no longer inhibited by the logic of her left brain either. Immediately after the stroke, she had no sense of depth perception, and was not able to comprehend color. She could see color, as there was nothing wrong with her occipital lobes or visual systems, however she was not able to comprehend color, and therefore could not see it. She could not see things in 3D space. She did not understand letters or numbers. It took the work of her mother and her willpower for her to be able to heal. 

TED Talk:

Oprah Interview:

Notes

• Cerebrum:

• Cerebellum:

• Cerebrocerebellum:

• Spinocerebellum:

• Vestibulocerebellum:

• Right Hemisphere:

• Left Hemisphere:

• Frontal Lobe:

• Parietal Lobe:

• Temporal Lobe:

• Occipital Lobe:

• Brainstem:

• Midbrain

• Pons:

• Medulla:

• Broca’s Area

• Wernicke’s Area:

• AVM: Arteriovenous Malformation

• CNS: Central Nervous System, which includes the brain and spinal cord

• PNS: Peripheral Nervous System, everything outside of the CNS