Mary Spiers, Ph.D.

In the spirit of the movie awards season it's time for NeuroPsyFi to weigh in with our picks for the best movie and  best actor portrayals for movies portraying characters with a brain disorder or a special brain ability.

This year there were a number of movies that deal with some aspect of brain functioning:
The nominees are:

The Imitation Game (Asperger's syndrome)
Lucy (cognitive enhancement)
Still Alice (early onset Alzheimer's disease)
St. Vincent (stroke)
Theory of Everything (Motor Neuron Disease)

Best Picture

The golden brain goes to....
The Theory of Everything

The Theory of Everything tells the compelling story of physicist Stephen Hawking from his early days at Cambridge. It shows how Hawkings deals  with his diagnosis of Motor neuron disease (a slowly progressive form of ALS) as well as his personal and scientific life as he lives with the disease. This is a complicated story of his loves and life that is told with compassion but without sentimentality. There have been several movies made about Stephen Hawking and this is simply the best.  It is not easy to blend good science about a neurological disorder with a story narrative.  The Theory of Everything is superb on all counts. 
 
Actor in a Leading Role
The Golden Brain goes to....
Eddie Redmayne
The Theory of Everything

There have been others who have played Hawking in movies about the great scientist, including Benedict Cumberbatch, but watching Eddie Redmayne feels like watching Stephen Hawking. Redmayne went through an amazing transformation to become Stephen Hawking.  He spent months studying Hawking through books and archival material and also worked with experts in Motor Neuron disease; both clinicians and people who have the disease. Apparently Stephen Hawking was so impressed by Redmayne's performance that he allowed his own synthesized voice to be used instead of the one created for the movie. 

Actress in a Leading Role
The Golden Brain goes to...
Julianne Moore
Still Alice

Julianne Moore gives a stellar performance in her portrayal of a linguist in her prime who loses her memory and her sense of self to the ravages of early onset Alzheimer's disease.  Moore started with good material from an adapted script based on the  well researched book I'm Still Alice by neuroscientist Lisa Genova. Moore then spent 4 months researching the part by spending time with women who suffer from early Alzheimer's disease as well as subjecting herself to batteries of neuropsychological tests so that she would know what taking these tests would be like. The progression of her decline in the movie is compelling.  See our full review of Still Alice  here.

About the Author:  Mary Spiers is a Clinical Neuropsychologist and Writer.  
She’s the creator of Neuropsyfi and the Writer’s Brain Lab Blog.   
Find out more about Mary Spiers, 
submit a story question or follow her on Twitter.

Mary Spiers, Ph.D.

If you have a character with a neurological disorder in your story, odds are you’re considering a scene in which the results of a brain scan will be interpreted.

Writers who want to mention or show a brain scan may wonder what types of imaging are appropriate to include for their character’s disorder.  If you simply Google “brain imaging methods” you’ll find a dizzying number of possible options. 

The latest developments in brain imaging have resulted in a number of experimental high-tech options.

However, if your story is set in the present day, these powerful imaging methods, like PET scans, DTI and fMRIs are not typically used in day-to-day neurological practice.  They may either be too expensive or not necessary to make a diagnosis.  As of now, they're used more in research aimed at discovering how the brain works.

Some of the newer imaging methods show a lot of promise, and they’re cool visually, so if your story is set in the future then you may choose to show some of these newer methods.

Below, I've compiled a cheat sheet listing the most common imaging methods used today and the reason each would be used.  

Mary Spiers, Ph.D.

What is the great amnesia hoax? 

A conk on the head causes loss of identity.
A second conk - either physical or emotional can restore identity and memory.

It's been around for a long time. One of the earliest silent movies, The Unchanging Sea (D. W. Griffith, 1910) used this device when the main character loses his identity after a fishing accident. When he washes ashore, he has no idea who he is.  He remains as a lost soul for years until he again sees his old familiar surroundings.  The emotional conk restores his memory and identity.

Why do writers continue to use this trope?  

•One reason is that losing one’s identity is a convenient way to send a protagonist on a quest to discover oneself.  

•Losing personal past is also a great way to place someone in jeopardy. If there are bad guys in pursuit, the character has to figure out the past along with the audience.  

•Finally, the fictional strategy of providing a physical or emotional jog to memory can wrap things up nicely.   The audience and the character now know what really happened.  

•There are other variations too, but the majority of movies listed in the Amnesia movies section of NeuropsyFi have some version of this fictional identity loss as a theme. 

However, this double-conk theory of memory is not based on brain science. Hitting someone in the head a second time is not a good cure for brain injury. An emotional jog won't suddenly restore lost memory from a head injury or other neurological problem. These are examples of how not to write a character with neurological amnesia. 

If you'd like to create a character with anterograde amnesia, and by that I mean problems in encoding and consolidating new information into long term memory that primarily results from damage to the hippocampus, I’ve compiled some resources for you here.  There are links to videos on memory and forgetting and how memory works in the brain.  These are at the level of a college Intro Psychology Course.  

Click on Amnesia Cases of a Neurological Origin to get a look into the actual lives of people (such as Clive Wearing) struggling with neurological amnesia.  There's no substitute for seeing what the life of a person with anterograde amnesia is really like in order to create the most believable and realistic character.

In my opinion, the movie that shows the most realistic portrayal of a leading character with anterograde amnesia is Memento (Leonard Shelby).  The real life clips about the case of Clive Wearing show striking similarities between this actual case and the movie Memento.  

In fact, Jonathon Nolan is reputed to have gotten the idea for his short story Memento Mori from his Intro Psychology class at Georgetown.  My bet is that he watched the Clive Wearing video that I, and most psychology teachers around the country, show our students. Jonathon then pitched the story to his brother Christopher Nolan, who wrote and directed Memento.  

The style of Memento takes the audience into the head of a person with severe anterograde amnesia.  The technique of having both a forward and backward plot line gives the audience only immediate and small pieces of information at a time, much like the world of someone who relies primarily on their short-term memory (7+/- 2 bits, about 20 seconds, or a few sentences). 

Despite the scene in the movie where Leonard voices the common misperception that he doesn’t have amnesia because he knows who he is, this is one of the best movies depicting the POV of someone with severe anterograde amnesia.  For more commentary see the NeuroPsyFi review of Memento. 

I'm curious about the reasons writers may want to use characters with amnesia or other memory problems. 

Welcome to The Writer's Brain Lab Blog on NeuroPsyFi.com.  This is a blog for writers of fiction and other film and TV industry professionals who are looking for an insider's view on brain science and neuropsychology as you develop and think about story issues.  

I will post thoughts and comments on story issues related to my expertise in Clinical Neuropsychology and my experience in screenwriting and fiction.  

Since Clinical Neuropsychology  deals with the brain related problems of humans, I will post  on issues of character development in those with neurological disorders.  These include problems such as Amnesia, Autism, Epilepsy, Traumatic Brain Injury, Dementia, and Stroke as well as rarer disorders such as Prosopagnosia and REM behavior disorder, among a host of others. About any brain issue that impacts behavior, personality, memory or cognition is a possibility for discussion on this blog.

An atypical brain does not always imply loss.  Many writers are interested in developing characters with enhanced skills, enhanced brains or enhanced powers of consciousness and want to know if such scenarios are possible. 

Portraying the professional, medical or rehabilitation setting as well as current brain imaging and technology used in stories also comes up frequently for writers.

I also invite, and will comment on and respond to questions and issues raised by writers who have a story question. 

I hope this blog will be a place for writers to gather, to learn about and discuss ideas that will help  to make good stories backed by good brain science.

If you want to submit a story question click here.

I welcome ideas for posts. If you'd like to suggest an idea, please either comment below or email me here.

Please check back often. I look forward to your comments.