Seized
de Eve LaPlante
Its symptoms are varied, involving an extraordinary range of behaviors: hallucinations, flashbacks, intense anger and fear, heightened religious feelings, changes in sexual interest, a compulsion to write or draw. Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), a condition that affects more than a million Americans, is one of the most common neurological disorders, yet one of the most remarkable. In its depths may lie not only a hidden source of creativity, but clues to one of the greatest scientific riddles of our time - the link between body and mind. In Seized, journalist Eve LaPlante has written a compelling chronicle of the lives of three ordinary people with this extraordinary disease: a corporate executive, a small-town attorney, and a former prison inmate and mental patient. Although TLE is the most common form of epilepsy among adults, it remains a challenge to diagnose and treat because of its manifold guises and degrees of severity.^ The stories of these patients show the amazing array of TLE's effects, both positive and negative, and illustrate how people manage to cope with the disorder by adapting in desperate or constructive ways. Interwoven with these narratives are accounts of the pioneering efforts by doctors to find a cure, from early, often harmful interventions - such as castration and psychosurgery - to today's hopeful drug therapies and neurosurgery. As the book reveals, what continues to make TLE a promising subject for research, as well as fascinating medical mystery, is its suggestive link to creativity. Moses, Saint Paul, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, van Gogh, and Lewis Carroll are only a few of the prominent figures portrayed in Seized who are thought to have had the disease, which may account for distinctive features in their lives and work.^ Dostoevsky, for example, described in fiction the ecstasy that can precede a TLE seizure, while van Gogh's phenomenal artistic output in the late 1880s is also characteristic of TLE. Rare among diseases, TLE crosses the traditional boundaries between psychiatry and neurology. LaPlante takes the reader inside the human brain to demonstrate how it functions during and between seizures and how changes in the brain can directly affect personality and behavior. She shows how knowledge gained from the study of TLE may ultimately lead to an understanding of the physiological causes of mental illness and mental health. An invaluable resource for anyone whose life has been touched by epilepsy, Seized is an equally dramatic narrative for anyone curious about the uncanny landscape of the brain.
