What a terminal cancer diagnosis is teaching this neuroscientist about the human mind

But the impending end of his life doesn’t mean he’s done learning about the human mind just yet. Linden was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer. In a piece in The Atlantic, he writes: "I may be dying, but I'm still a science nerd."

During a routine echocardiogram, doctors noticed something sticking up next to Linden’s heart that they thought was a hiatal hernia or a benign growth called a teratoma, he says. After the tumor was removed, a biopsy found it was a form of malignant cancer called synovial sarcoma that had grown into the wall of his heart — making it impossible to remove.

One way the biomedical researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine processes his diagnosis is by nerding out about it. His doctors showed him photos of his tumor and heart surgery to his excitement.

“It is empowering to be a nerd about something really grim, meaning my own terminal cancer,” he says. “But I think the more interesting thing is what it has led me to think about the human mind.”