Refinding the self

Strokes and brain diseases can radically change our personalities. But with more understanding of how brains work, a leading neurologist says sometimes, our old selves can be restored.

- MARK BROATCH

What makes the self? Is it simply manifestations of the brain? If that's the case, what happens when the brain is injured or affected by illness? Are we still ourselves? Masud Husain, a professor of neurology and cognitive neuroscience at Oxford, says brain ailments can not only alter our personal identities but our social identities - how we interact with others. In a new book, he introduces us to patients who illustrate how radical changes in our brain can cause radical changes in our selves - from the extroverted, ambitious young man who completely lost all motivation after a stroke; to the woman whose hands appeared to have an embarrassing mind of their own; to a father whose community standing began to crumble because he suffered hallucinations; to a woman who thought her husband had been replaced.

"Modern neuroscientists would think, I would think, that the self is really something which emerges from the activity of the brain, a constellation of different kinds of capacities, or, if you like, cognitive modules - language, attention, perception, these kinds of things," Husain told the Listener. "And those modules which created that society of mind can be changed if you take one of those modules away or it becomes dysfunctional."

It's not like you've lost yourself, he says, but you've become a different self. "Your relationships with other people are in a way what defines a self. And if you change in the way you interact with other people, that really alters the way people think about you."

In an increasing number of cases, modern neuroscience can help those whose brains have become dysfunctional to regain their sense of self. These developments are explored in Our Brains, Our Selves: What a Neurologist's Patients Taught Him About the Brain, which follows seven of Husain's former patients at London's National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.