In lieu of flowers, Terry's wife Nzeera requests memorial contributions be made to Brain Support Network.
Terence Arthur Ketter, MD, an emeritus professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences with Stanford University, died from complications from a neurodegenerative disease on Nov. 1, surrounded by his wife and medical school friends. He was 74.
Terry was diagnosed by neurologists with atypical parkinsonism. This umbrella term refers to several rare conditions, including progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). Terry's mother had similar symptoms and was thought to have Alzheimer's disease. Before he died, Terry expressed a desire to donate his brain to enable future research into whatever disease he was found to have had. Less important to Terry was the pathologic confirmation of the diagnosis. (Brain donation is the "gold standard" for neurodegenerative disorders.)
Terry's wife Nzeera Ketter, MD contacted Brain Support Network for assistance with the brain donation arrangements. Normally, Brain Support Network would arrange for an atypical parkinsonism brain to be donated to a specialist brain bank in the US conducting research into these disorders. However, Terry intended to take advantage of MAID (medical aid in dying) in Toronto (near where he went to medical school). Shipping a precious brain through US Customs to a US-based brain bank was going to be logistically difficult because the dry ice included with part of the brain tissue would melt while waiting to clear Customs.
Instead, Brain Support Network tapped into the ALLFTD network and located a brain bank and research team in Toronto. (ALLFTD is an international research project looking into frontotemporal degeneration disorders, including progressive supranuclear palsy. Brain Support Network is a partner in the ALLFTD neuropathology core.) We were able to assist Nzeera in making arrangements for Terry's brain to be donated to the University of Toronto.
Shortly after Terry's death in Toronto, his brain was recovered. His wife Nzeera describes this as Terry's final research project; he was, after all, a man of science.
The neuropathologic analysis was recently returned: Terry had progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP).
For more information about PSP
For more information about brain donation
Read Terry's obituary
Published by Stanford Medicine. Interesting excerpts:
After earning a master's degree in mathematics from Sydney University in 1976, Ketter decided to tour Southeast Asia for what would ultimately be a four-year span. He started a jewelry-making business during his travels, buying and exchanging goods for stones and setting them into jewelry. During a stay in Indonesia, Ketter became interested in how the traditional Balinese healers approached mental health care. They treated conditions such as depression and anxiety but also helped solve relationship problems with interventions such as separate kitchens for mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, his wife, Nzeera Ketter, MD, said. This sparked his interest in mental health care.
He sold his jewelry business to pay for medical school, enrolling at the University of Toronto in 1980 when he was 30.
"His interests came together in a strange way - his jewelry making made him very good at putting in intravenous and arterial lines and performing lumbar punctures, and his math skills enabled him to do all his own imaging analysis," Nzeera Ketter said. "He put mathematics, jewelry and medicine together and could traverse all three of them with comfort. It was quite impressive and seamless."
In 1995, Ketter joined Stanford Medicine, where he founded the Bipolar Disorders Clinic, which studies and treats patients with bipolar and other mood disorders. His research at the clinic drew international attention. Ketter was a significant figure in bipolar disorder research. He published extensively, writing over 450 scientific articles and book chapters and editing two books on bipolar disorder treatment (Advances in Treatment of Bipolar Disorder and Handbook of Diagnosis and Treatment of Bipolar Disorder).
Ketter retired in 2017 to travel the world. He and his wife had always been prolific travelers but took it to the next level upon his retirement - including a four-week expedition to Antarctica to see penguins and whales in their element.
Ketter had two dogs of the breed Coton de Tulear, named Coco Chanel and Nina Ricci, which he loved dearly. The couple never had children, but Nzeera Ketter said that whenever someone asked him, "Do you have any kids?" he would say, "Yeah, I have two girls, and they look like me" - with white fluffy hair on their faces like his own distinguished white beard.
