Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: Extraordinary Journeys into the Human Brain

從醫學真實案例中，探尋生存的意義哈佛大學醫學院教授、權威神經學羅柏醫師，帶領讀者進入如《愛麗絲夢遊仙境》般荒謬難解的腦部世界……有如《愛麗絲夢遊仙境》的兔子洞，人類腦部充滿難解的謎團。羅柏醫師（Dr. Allan H. Ropper）與作家布瑞爾（Brian Burrell）攜手，紀錄第一線的醫護人員如何面對各種腦部疾病，並運用偵辦懸案般的手法，解開重重謎團。當病患被診斷出嚴重腦部疾病，影響語言能力、無法控制思想，甚至失去常理時，醫師該如何問診、如何診斷？臨床真實案例如下──身體變成定時炸彈的花式滑冰選手；無法停止開車環繞圓環的銷售員；無預警突然開始呼喊相同字句的運動員；在冰上滑倒後，腦死的兒童猥褻犯；兩個年幼孩子的母親，罹患肌萎縮性脊髓側索硬化症，成為漸凍人……這些病患的人生可能永遠改變，醫護人員該如何診治、又該如何提供諮詢？如何訓練新一代的臨床醫師，面對腦部疾病的道德與醫療層面的兩難？腦部疾病十分複雜，腦膜炎、蜘蛛膜下腔出血、栓塞、腫瘤……等病症，都可能造成腦部產生異狀，病患需要的不僅僅是醫學治療或手術，更是社會與心理層面的雙管齊下。"Tell the doctor where it hurts." It sounds simple enough, unless the problem affects the very organ that produces awareness and generates speech. What is it like to try to heal the body when the mind is under attack? In this book, Dr. Allan Ropper and Brian Burrell take the reader behind the scenes at Harvard Medical School's neurology unit to show how a seasoned diagnostician faces down bizarre, life-altering afflictions. Like Alice in Wonderland, Dr. Ropper inhabits a world where absurdities abound:• A figure skater whose body has become a ticking time-bomb• A salesman who drives around and around a traffic rotary, unable to get off• A college quarterback who can't stop calling the same play• A child molester who, after falling on the ice, is left with a brain that is very much dead inside a body that is very much alive• A mother of two young girls, diagnosed with ALS, who has to decide whether a life locked inside her own head is worth livingHow does one begin to treat such cases, to counsel people whose lives may be changed forever? How does one train the next generation of clinicians to deal with the moral and medical aspects of brain disease? Dr. Ropper and his colleague answer these questions by taking the reader into a rarified world where lives and minds hang in the balance.