A Woman With a Rare Gene Mutation Fights to Avoid Her Mother's Fate

Linde Jacobs paced back and forth across her bedroom, eyeing the open laptop on the dresser and willing the doctor to appear. Her husband was dropping off their older daughter at school. Their younger daughter was downstairs, occupied by a screen. Linde wanted to be alone when she learned whether she carried the family curse.

Linde’s mother, Allison, had died just four weeks before, after a mutant gene gradually laid waste to her brain. In her 50s, Allison transformed from a joyful family ringleader into an impulsive, deceptive pariah. She drove like a maniac on cul-de-sacs. She pinched strangers, shoplifted craft supplies and stole money from her daughter.

Now, on this morning in September 2021, Linde would find out if she had inherited the same vile genetic mutation....

Read the full article on the NYTimes website.