A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain

By Sara Manning Peskin

ISBN 978-1-324-00237-6

Sara Manning Peskin’s A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain is an intriguing collection of anecdotes exploring the experiences of real patients with various neurological conditions. The potency of Peskin’s work comes from the emotional and critical realism with which these stories are told. These patients are more than exemplary instances of conditions ranging from Huntington’s to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease; they are people, and Peskin offers her readers enough insights into their lives to make the impact of their prognoses and diagnoses that much more compelling.

Peskin begins with a brief introduction in which she eloquently articulates the basic biology behind inception, cellular growth, and early neurological development. She lays the foundation for the concept that drives the rest of the book–the idea that “the very molecules that make our brains work can also co-opt our personalities and destroy our ability to think.” Peskin offers an illustrative definition of a molecule, explaining that her book is about “molecular villains” whose incredibly small size is directly disproportionate to the momentous impact they can have on the mind’s ability to function as expected. She divides these molecular villains into four categories: mutants, which are altered sequences of DNA; rebels, which are aberrant proteins; invaders, which are small molecules that aren’t meant to be in the brain; and evaders, which are small molecules that are meant to be in the brain but are missing for some reason.

Peskin breaks the narrative into three parts. Each part begins with a brief introduction explaining the foundational concepts the reader will need to understand in order to fully comprehend the anecdotes that follow in the section. The first part covers DNA mutants, telling the stories of patients diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and Pick’s disease. The second part covers rebellious proteins and features a patient whose brain was attacked by an antibody that had similar psychological effects as PCP, causing her to believe the world was plagued by a zombie apocalypse. Another patient’s immune system generated an antibody that blocked his receptors, causing a number of physical and psychological changes that led him to require intubation. Peskin ends the section with some stories about prion diseases like kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob. The third and final part of the book covers invaders and evaders. In it, Peskin covers mercury poisoning, illustrated with a very interesting presidential anecdote, as well as thiamine deficiency and pellagra.

Peskin’s epilogue begins grimly: “The life expectancy of an Alzheimer’s disease patient has changed little since the condition was discovered more than a century ago.” However, she still manages to reassure the reader that, although this may be the case, scientists and medical researchers now better understand the human mind, how it works, and what causes it to break, so to speak, than they did a hundred years ago. And the more they seek to understand, the better equipped they will be to improve prognoses over the next hundred years for all patients diagnosed with neurological conditions.

A Molecule Away from Madness is beautifully written, with elegant and compelling prose one can easily get lost in. The terrifying reality of the true fragility of the human mind is easier to digest with Peskin’s tactful and measured delivery.

Jeanette S. Ferrara, MFA