Oliver Sacks
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"Oliver Wolf Sacks", Order of the British Empire/CBE is a British-American neurologist, writer, and amateur chemistry/amateur chemist who is Professor of Neurology at New York University School of Medicine. Between 2007 and 2012, he was professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, where he also held the position of "Columbia Artist". Before that, he spent many years on the clinical faculty of Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He also holds the position of visiting professor at the United Kingdom's University of Warwick.

Sacks is the author of numerous best-selling books, including several collections of case studies of people with neurological disorders. His 1973 book Awakenings (book)/Awakenings was adapted into the Academy Award-nominated Awakenings/film of the same name in 1990 starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. He and his book Musicophilia/Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain were the subject of "Musical Minds", an episode of the Public Broadcasting Service/PBS series Nova (TV series)/Nova.

More Oliver Sacks on Wikipedia.

(Music) is as powerful as any medicine.

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When the documentary of 'Awakenings' was made in '73, the first thing the film director asked was, 'Could we meet the music therapist? She seems to be the most important person around here,'.

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Certainly it's not just a visual experience - it's an emotional one. In an informal way I have often seen quite demented patients recognize and respond vividly to paintings and delight in painting at a time when they are scarcely responsive to words and disoriented and out of it. I think that recognition of visual art can be very deep.

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