[scw]

If you found her talk fascinating (as did I), definitely check out her book (http://drjilltaylor.com/book.html), which covers the entire process in great detail. At times its a bit slow, but it successfully elucidates the challenges she faced, and the eight years of recovery which followed the stroke.

I think the spiritual aspect of the story shouldn't be ignored: our perception of reality is also 'plastic', and we can, to a large extent, retrain ourselves to respond differently to sensory input.

[aikiai]

Amazon'd. I've actually meant to research her recovery. Can't wait.

I agree that the spiritual half of the story is crucial as well. Actually, this reply got too long and spawned a short blog post, check it out if you are interested. ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=442574 )

I was merely reaching across the aisle, lending her some tech credence despite the fact that she sounds like "one of those spiritual types" at times.

[bprater]

Agreed, both the TED video and her book were amazing. If you are the kind of person that wants your reality expanded, take a look at what she is up to.