Healthy Brain, Happy Life by Wendy Suzuki Page B

symptoms that are severe enough to affect a person’s everyday life. These symptoms most commonly include a decline in memory function, planning ability, decision making, and other thinking skills. The term alone does not describe a specific disease. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. It is estimated that 60 to 80 percent of people with signs of dementia have Alzheimer’s disease. The most common symptom of Alzheimer’s disease is difficulty remembering names and recent events. It is associated with deposits of protein fragments called beta-amyloid (referred to as plaque) and twisted strands of another protein called tau (referred to as tangles). These plaques and tangles are found all over the brain in late stages of the disease. To find out more information see the Alzheimer’s Association’s website (www.alz.org).

    MARRIED TO SCIENCE
    Yes, I was trying to strengthen my relationship with my family, but my career was still the major focus of my life. My new appreciation of how precious our memories are was making me realize how few precious personal memories I had. Don’t get me wrong. I had many great colleagues and work friends. Over the years I had established strong and productive collaborations for my work. I was considered an energetic and productive colleague to many but dear friend to few. Not to mention the fact that I was perpetually single. Was being married to science enough for me?
    My focus on work and more specifically on succeeding in science was not new. It started when I was an undergraduate with my determination to become a neuroscientist and teacher like Professor Diamond. The irony here is that Diamond was more than a science role model. She was a wonderful role model for a balanced life in science that included not only an active research lab and spectacular teaching reputation but also a husband (another scientist), children, and an active social life that included her weekly undergraduate tennis matches. But for some reason, I didn’t feel the need to model myself after those other features of her identity. All I focused on was her passion for research and professional success.
    My focus on work was amped up even more once I started my postdoctoral position at NIH. Every day, typically seven days a week, I had a forty-minute commute from my apartment in the Adams Morgan neighborhood in D.C. to my small office in the basement of Building 49 on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, to work, work, work. Yes, I did socialize with the great group of post-doc colleagues in the lab at the time, and even dated two of my colleagues (at different times), which was when I learned firsthand all the reasons people warn you not to date your coworkers. But these were momentary blips in the scheme of my life. I hadn’t had a serious boyfriend since François.
    I had developed a theory about myself that started to define how I lived my life. My theory was that my self-worth was measured only by how many papers I published and grants and prizes I won. It made a lot of sense at the time; certainly this was the area of my life where I got the most attention and recognition. It was also an easy formula to follow. It was easier just to work all the time. There were no messy emotional attachments to deal with—just doing the work to the best of my ability. Yes, I could do that, and I was really good at it.
    But there were a couple of corollaries too. One was the idea that I was not good in purely nonscience social situations. I felt confident about how I handled social situations revolving around science. If I could talk about my passion for my work, I was in my element. The problem was I didn’t know how to talk about anything else, which made my social conversation both awkward and boring. I had also decided during this time that men were just not interested in me. I had lots of great evidence for this theory. Just consider my graduate school experience.