Brain Disorders & Therapy

Traumatic brain injury

3^rd World Brain Congress

August 20, 2021 | Webinar

Victor Erlich

Physician at Northwest Neurology, USA

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Brain Disord The

Abstract:

On vacation with my son in 2011, I suffered a bicycle crash in Kenya, which put me in the hospital for three months on three continents, with multiple fractures and traumatic brain injury. Early on, I was thought unlikely to survive, then unlikely to walk again, then unlikely to return to work as a neurologist. I soon found myself applying my longstanding interest in the plastic arts and literature to supplement my rehabilitation as inpatient on the Brain-Injury Service at the University of Washington Medical Center. As I lay debilitated and despondent, I was, surprisingly, brought back to Shakespeare, who has much to say about the disordered mind and how artfulness might bring one back to a more harmonious state. “This is an art/ Which does mend Nature, change it rather; but/ The art itself is Nature,” says Polixenes in The Winter’s Tale. In my reading of his plays, Shakespeare seems uncannily aware of what is now a new field in neurology, the finely-honed executive function, seated in the frontal lobes of the human brain. Dr Elkhonon Goldberg, the pre-eminent expositor of executive function, particularly in The New Executive Brain, describes executive function as the orchestral conductor of behavior, the apparatus that allows human beings to compose and civilize themselves, or not. I refer often to Dr. Goldberg’s work, and to Shakespeare. And this leads me to explore why human beings create art, and why the healing arts have long included art therapy. In my new book, I support my thoughts with many illustrations, from ice-age painting to Cezanne and Calder. . As a practicing neurologist, I also bring to bear my understanding of how the brain achieves well-composed thinking in a normal state, and how this capacity allows the brain to re-harmonize its injured neurons. Here, I proceed along the lines of other neuroscientists, including Sir Charles Sherrington, Dr. Alexandr Luria, Dr. Antonio Damasio, Dr. Norman Doidge, and Dr Oliver Sacks. I try to expand on these wise scientists and physicians, who are also marvelous writers.I do not confine myself to the theoretical but also include a detailed description of what exactly goes on in a celebrated center dedicated to the rehabilitation of TBI.