Man With Almost No Brain lives Normal Life

Twila

Twila

Nanah Potato
Mar 26, 2003
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070719.wbrain0719/BNStory/Science/home
Abolutely Amazing!!
Man lives normal life with abnormal brain


Reuters
July 19, 2007 at 8:06 PM EDT

A man with an unusually tiny brain managed to live an entirely normal life despite his condition, caused by a fluid buildup in his skull, French researchers reported on Thursday.
Scans of the 44-year-old man's brain showed that a huge fluid-filled chamber called a ventricle took up most of the room in his skull, leaving little more than a thin sheet of actual brain tissue.
"He was a married father of two children, and worked as a civil servant," Dr. Lionel Feuillet and colleagues at a university in Marseille wrote in a letter to the Lancet medical journal.
The man went to a hospital after he had mild weakness in his left leg. When Dr. Feuillet's staff took his medical history, they learned he had had a shunt inserted into his head to drain away hydrocephalus -- water on the brain -- as an infant.

Enlarge Image MRI scans of a 44-year-old man's brain show a huge fluid-filled chamber called a ventricle taking up most of the room in his skull, leaving little more than a thin sheet of actual brain tissue, in this handout image released by French researchers. (Reuters)


The shunt was removed when he was 14.
So the researchers did a computed tomography (CT) scan and another type of scan called magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). They were astonished to see "massive enlargement" of the lateral ventricles -- usually tiny chambers that hold the cerebrospinal fluid that cushions the brain.
Intelligence tests showed the man had an IQ of 75, below the average score of 100 but not considered mentally retarded or disabled, either.
"What I find amazing to this day is how the brain can deal with something which you think should not be compatible with life," commented Dr. Max Muenke, a pediatric brain defect specialist at the National Human Genome Research Institute.
"If something happens very slowly over quite some time, maybe over decades, the different parts of the brain take up functions that would normally be done by the part that is pushed to the side," added Dr. Muenke, who was not involved in the case.
Click to expand...
 
Dreadful Nonsense

Dreadful Nonsense

Time Out
May 28, 2007
3,866
67
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Honour our Fallen
"retarded"I hate the use of that word and find it odd they used it in the article.
My theory is the person in the body has a strong will..he is ,imho, useing his will to lead a productive life......
 
Z

Zzarchov

House Member
Aug 28, 2006
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for everyones information, Forrest Gump also had an IQ of 75, his life turned out well.
 
Impetus

Impetus

Electoral Member
May 31, 2007
447
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A guy I know was hit in the head by a line drive causing severe brain damage on one side.
He couldn't speak or walk properly until after many months of therapy the other side of his brain re-mapped itself and took over most of the lost function.

You wouldn't know anything ever happened now and he's back to his job as a policeman.

I also read an article about findings that much of the "intelligence" that controls our movements and sensations is actually located in the nerves of those parts. As in the central nervous system (CNS) is not only a conduit for information, but also a processor.

They figure the sub-routines controlling movements like grasping, writing, typing, playing music, etc are actually in the hands. The brain just triggers these subroutines to make the body work.

Explains why musicians play scales etc to practice...the conscious brain has to use repetition to train the CNS the routines.

In this guy's case the theory would make sense too. However slow his brain processing must be, his CNS is likely taking on much of the routine work, perhaps more than you or me with (ahem...) normal brains.

That would give him all the qualifications of a drummer...;-)

Muz
 
Curiosity

Curiosity

Senate Member
Jul 30, 2005
7,326
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California
I was taught originally that we use very little of our available brain - which leads me to believe we aren't anywhere near our evolutionary final goal....so these underdeveloped brains may be enough with which to function in survival ie: eating, sleeping, and normal behavior without all the 'frills' we 'enjoy' such as temper/ emotional outburst, sexual excitement, addictive behavior, etc.
 
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