Sound Medicine has a fascinating podcast interview with Dr Jill Bolte Taylor a neuroanatomist who experienced a stroke that damaged her brain and fundamentally changed her perception of the world.
A stroke is when the blood supply to the brain get interrupted, often because an artery gets blocked, it swells, or bursts.
Taylor notes that she didn’t ‘suffer’ a stroke, but ‘experienced’ one, as despite the significant impairment, she found the whole experience an amazing insight into how her brain degraded and repaired after damage.
In the interview, her sense of wonder at the effect of this sudden change in brain function is quite infectious.
Taylor has written a book about her experiences called My Stroke of Insight (ISBN 1430300612) which recounts how the stroke affected her life and mind.
If you’re interested in how mind and brain scientists make sense of their own personal experiences of neurological disorder, there’s a wonderful book called Injured Brains of Medical Minds which is a collection of writing on the topic.
If you want to know how to detect the signs of a stroke and want to know what life-saving action you could take, there’s a fantastic information page here.
Link to podcast webpage.
mp3 of podcast interview.
Link to ‘What You Need to Know About Stroke’ infomation.
Mind Hacks 
You can get Jill’s book “My Stroke of Insight” from Amazon for a good discount.
Here’s the link:
http://www.amazon.com/My-Stroke-Insight-Scientists-Personal/dp/0670020745/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210709205&sr=8-4