Patchwork Labyrinth®

Patchwork Labyrinth® is about human resilience, neuroscience, and why you should care.  The story explores how learning happens; it keeps brain injury at its core and lets curiosity open new pathways. There are dead ends; there is encouragement.

Patchwork Labyrinth® opens in 1993. The year a car accident left me struggling to read, walk, and write. A year when, unbeknownst to me, a revolution in brain science was already underway. Because some of my concussive symptoms never ended,  I started paying close attention to the debates and advances in neurology. Discoveries that help explain my uneven recovery include the free-energy principle (perception and action are reciprocal) and neuroplasticity (neurons can keep changing into adulthood). 

By 2012, radiology advanced enough to show that my inner ear and bony labyrinth had holes where none should be. Here was a source of my poor balance, of chronic mental overload. After surgeons opened my skull and patched the tiny holes, many of my lingering symptoms went away.  As I convalesced, my prior observations about what had helped me get back on my feet some twenty years earlier got reinforced. Repetitive, meditative activities –like handwork, like walking –boost my learning and memory.

Scientists keep discovering how movement and and thought are intertwined (see SCAN).  Discoveries that can improve your quality of life, too. 

Questions? Contact me here.