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Man with tiny brain shocks doctors (2007)
21–30 of 36 posts
Re: Man with tiny brain shocks doctors (2007)
#22I’ve heard that most processing in the brain happens near the surface, while the central brain regions are more connective. Is that accurate and could it be a factor here? If he’s got otherwise mostly normal brain function, my gut reaction is that maybe those connections were just displaced or formed in other ways.
Article says his IQ is 75, which is quite low.
Even if his IQ was 100+ it doesn't necessarily indicate other kinds of loss... Everyone knows IQ is a poor metric and that intelligence comes in many different forms.
I'm wondering what he lacks that is not outwardly apparent from his job and family life:
Everyone with a biologically normal brain has potential to use it for sophisticated abstract thought in all kinds of ways... or they can (and for the majority do - not judging) spend their whole life not using much of that potential at all. Does this man have less of that potential? is he actually operating on maximum capacity right now as a civil servant?
Re: Man with tiny brain shocks doctors (2007)
#23I'm skeptical of these images. I can't find any follow-up scans on Lorber's patient, despite such an unbelievable finding. Unfortunately John Lorber has passed away (1996), making this patient impossible to track down.
Interestingly someone took it upon themselves to reclaim these images in 2012...
http://retractionwatch.com/2016/09/08/authors-didnt-generate...
Only to get retracted in 2016.
Re: Man with tiny brain shocks doctors (2007)
#24I'm skeptical of these images. I can't find any follow-up scans on Lorber's patient, despite such an unbelievable finding. Unfortunately John Lorber has passed away (1996), making this patient impossible to track down. Interestingly someone took it upon themselves to reclaim these images in 2012... http://retractionwatch.com/2016/09/08/authors-didnt-generate... Only to get retracted in 2016.
There's nothing unbelievable in this findings regardless of authenticity of these images. I know about at least one such case here in Russia, from my own fathers career, and he told me there were others. It's something people know about for quite a long time, at least in our country.
Re: Man with tiny brain shocks doctors (2007)
#25“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”
The way I see it, the Human Brain increases its efficiency (Assuming the 10% Brain Efficiency Myth is true) in such cases, to be able to do all the work that otherwise an entire Brian would have done. I'm curious what would happen if we were to somehow gradually disable parts of the brain, ensuring all functions of the Human Body are still intact, and then suddenly bring all of it back.
Re: Man with tiny brain shocks doctors (2007)
#26I love the idea that one of us might be an example of a high performing "tiny brain".
What if it's you? Or me? How would we know without a brain scan? Would it matter? Would it change the way you think about yourself and stop you trying?
Probably best to never find out!
Re: Man with tiny brain shocks doctors (2007)
#27I'm skeptical of these images. I can't find any follow-up scans on Lorber's patient, despite such an unbelievable finding. Unfortunately John Lorber has passed away (1996), making this patient impossible to track down. Interestingly someone took it upon themselves to reclaim these images in 2012... http://retractionwatch.com/2016/09/08/authors-didnt-generate... Only to get retracted in 2016.
There's nothing unbelievable in this findings regardless of authenticity of these images. I know about at least one such case here in Russia, from my own fathers career, and he told me there were others. It's something people know about for quite a long time, at least in our country.
It is the particulars here that are unbelievable to me. Normal after hemespherectomy - sure, depending on the lobe, you will have fully intact language, hemiblindness but probably can regain motor function on the effected side after some time (depending on age). No cerebellum, nbd, cerebellum does not plan, initiate, or stop motor movement - it only corrects errors and has some putative cognitive roles.
What we have here is far more extreme: massive cortical tissue loss and compression, bilaterally. His striatum looks completely gone. There are many well studied and documented patients with far less tissue loss who suffer major cognitive and learning deficits. That makes this case here remarkable to me.
Re: Man with tiny brain shocks doctors (2007)
#28“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” The way I see it, the Human Brain increases its efficiency (Assuming the 10% Brain Efficiency Myth is true) in such cases, to be able to do all the work that otherwise an entire Brian would have done. I'm curious what would h…
There is a limit to the flexibility of the brain. In a compensated brain, it is very likely that an injury that would normally not have any effect on function would have devastating consequences.
To answer your question, I'd imagine that it likely depends on the timescale. People with TIAs have decrease in function that lasts minutes to hours, and on return of proper bloodflow, might take days to fully recover. You might see this as people who completely lose speech during the TIA, and then have word hunting for several days.
A brain that adapted to gradually diminished function, say as a result of microvascular changes, over the course of months to years would likely experience the same debilitation if there was a sudden permanent change.
Re: Man with tiny brain shocks doctors (2007)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's nothing unbelievable in this findings regardless of authenticity of these images. I know about at least one such case here in Russia, from my own fathers career, and he told me there were others. It's something people know about for quite a long time, at least in our country.
It is the particulars here that are unbelievable to me. Normal after hemespherectomy - sure, depending on the lobe, you will have fully intact language, hemiblindness but probably can regain motor function on the effected side after some time (depending on age). No cerebellum, nbd, cerebellum does not plan, initiate, or stop motor movement - it only corrects errors and has some putative cognitive roles. What we have…
It's probably not a tissue loss, rather it's just undeveloped, as it was in the case I mentioned above. But nevertheless this probably should push nervous system to its limits to compensate such deficiency, so it's quite remarkable indeed.
Re: Man with tiny brain shocks doctors (2007)
#30It might be that he has a usual number of neurons but squished.