Elaborating on recent medical advances, Peskin explains how genetic mutations, autoimmune responses, and vitamin deficiencies have been linked to brain maladies, and describes the intense emotional and physical sufferings of patients and their families: one mother “kept watch over her daughter, hoping one of the always answerless doctors would burst into the room and announce the reason for Lauren’s illness.” Anecdotes run the gamut from depressing to enlightening, the latter exemplified by the story of how Abraham Lincoln’s mood swings were linked to mercury poisoning. There’s Friedrich Miescher, who isolated DNA in the mid–19th century, and Nancy Wexler, who located the gene that causes Huntington’s disease in 1979. In vivid prose, Peskin brings to life the scientists who have contributed to the current “molecular” understanding of such conditions as memory loss and sudden personality shifts. Neurologist Peskin debuts with an impressive account of the search for cures for a number of neurologic diseases including dementia and psychosis.
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