Lev Alexandrovich Zasetsky (9 August 1920 – 9 September 1993) was a patient who was treated by Soviet

neuropsychologist Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology concerned with how a person's cognition and behavior are related to the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Professionals in this branch of psychology often focus on how injuries or illnesses of t ...

Alexander Luria Alexander Romanovich Luria (russian: Алекса́ндр Рома́нович Лу́рия, p=ˈlurʲɪjə; 16 July 1902 – 14 August 1977) was a Soviet neuropsychologist, often credited as a father of modern neuropsychology. He develope ...

. Zasetsky suffered a severe

brain injury An injury is any physiological damage to living tissue caused by immediate physical stress. An injury can occur intentionally or unintentionally and may be caused by blunt trauma, penetrating trauma, burning, toxic exposure, asphyxiation, or o ...

, losing his ability to read, write, and speak (retrieving desired words was particularly difficult), and suffering impaired vision, memory, and other functions. He was notable for the tenacity (and to some extent, success) with which he fought to regain a normal life, and for what the pattern of his deficits helped

cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

scientists to learn about

brain function A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a ve ...

. He also wrote a journal of his experience, which itself was extraordinarily difficult for him. He was 23 years old when injured in the Battle of Smolensk on March 2, 1943. A bullet entered his left parieto-

occipital The occipital bone () is a cranial dermal bone and the main bone of the occiput (back and lower part of the skull). It is trapezoidal in shape and curved on itself like a shallow dish. The occipital bone overlies the occipital lobes of the cereb ...

area, and resulted in a long

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...

. Following this he developed a form of

agnosia Agnosia is the inability to process sensory information. Often there is a loss of ability to recognize objects, persons, sounds, shapes, or smells while the specific sense is not defective nor is there any significant memory loss. It is usually ...

and became unable to perceive the right side of things. Objects he did see often appeared as fragmented pieces rather than whole objects. Even the right side of his own body was invisible to him, an experience that remained terrifying even years later. Luria, who treated Zasetsky over the course of 26 years, published excerpts from Zasetsky's journal and a detailed case history in ''The Man with a Shattered World: The History of a Brain Wound''. Zasetsky died in September 1993 at the age of 73.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zasetsky, Lev 1920 births 1993 deaths Neurotrauma People with traumatic brain injuries Soviet military personnel of World War II

See also

References