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Science

Study Title
Combating Inflammation in the Brain—What is Good for the Body Is Good for the Brain
Publication
ADVANCES in Mind Body Medicine
Author(s)

David Perlmutter, MD, FACN, ABIHM
Interview by Karen Burnett

Abstract

Advances in Mind Body Medicine (Advances): Tell us about about your background. Did your childhood involve family members who were interested in medicine, were you interested in medicine as a child, and what drew you to the study of the brain?
Dr Perlmutter: That is actually a wonderful place to start because, indeed, a very influential family member had a big impact on the rest of my life.
As a kid, my father was not around that much because he was a very active brain surgeon and, as many young men would do, I did everything I could to be able to spend time with him. Knowing that it wouldn’t happen outside of the hospital, I realized that I’d have to spend time with him on his turf.
Even as a 12- and 13-year-old, I was in the operating room—initially watching and then, as I entered middle years, actually assisting him in doing brain operations. During that very influential and formative time in my life, I was getting lessons in brain anatomy and learning about what functions were served by this particular part of the brain or that par- ticular part of the brain. So I became quite interested, at a very impressionable time in my life, in brain science.
When I went to college, it gave me an opportunity to spend the summer doing a brain research project at the University of Florida. I was even able to publish a research paper in the Journal of Neurosurgery and present my findings on a national level when I was 20 years old. That was close to 40 years ago, so I had a very early start in the neurosciences…

Date
December 1, 2013
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