Famous brain injury case studies besides Phineas Gage?

February 24, 2016 2:40 PM

I'm looking for examples of famous, sensationally reported medical case studies involving brain injury and/or resulting personality changes... besides the story of Phineas Gage.
posted by Taft to Society & Culture (10 answers total)

How about Anatoli Bugorski, who stuck his head into the path of a cyclotron's proton beam?
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:44 PM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Have you read The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat? Sort of the go-to book on odd neurological disorders (charmingly told by Oliver Sacks).
posted by The Bellman at 2:49 PM on February 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

H.M.
posted by nicebookrack at 2:52 PM on February 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Jill Bolte Taylor
posted by SemiSalt at 3:25 PM on February 24, 2016

Clive Wearing
posted by jeb at 3:37 PM on February 24, 2016

Bear in mind that it's very, very likely that the long-accepted story of Phineas Gage's personality changes after his accident are not true.
posted by sarcasticah at 3:37 PM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Brain on Fire
posted by Dashy at 5:45 PM on February 24, 2016

Jon Sarkin, a chiropractor who underwent a fairly radical personality change following a stroke and pursued a second career as a visual artist. You can read about the case in reporter Amy Ellis Nut's original serialized reportage or the full-length book Shadows Bright As Glass, the subject of this NPR interview with the author from which I originally remember the case.
posted by drlith at 6:12 PM on February 24, 2016

There's a bunch in The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons.
posted by greenland at 7:44 PM on February 24, 2016

Seconding the Oliver Sacks book.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 4:39 PM on February 26, 2016