Born With Half A Brain

[All Seeing Eye]

Michelle Mack has turned medical thinking upside down.

Born with only half a brain, Mack can speak normally, graduated from high school and has an uncanny knack for dates.
At 27, doctors determined that the right side of her brain had essentially rewired itself to make up for function that was likely lost during a pre-birth stroke. But her childhood and young adult years were fraught with frustration.
"It was very hard for me," Mack said. "It was very hard for me growing up. No one knew the truth about my brain."
Mack's parents, Carol and Wally, realized shortly after her birth that something was wrong.
"There wasn't a group to turn to," said Carol Mack. "Michelle didn't have cerebral palsy, I knew that. She didn't have Down's syndrome, I knew that. I had no place to turn."


Ten years ago, Dr. Jordan Grafman, chief of the Cognitive Neuroscience Section at the National Institutes of Health, finally diagnosed the problem.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/12/woman.brain/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
An MRI scan revealed she was missing nearly all the left side of her brain. While it was clear Mack has some problems, Grafman said he and the family were shocked by the extent of the damage.

<SNIP>

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Just shows how little we know about the Human brain and just how much of it we really need.

 

[Alpha Romeo]

I could respond with a joke here...but I'll leave it be.

 

[Squiggy]

I could respond with a joke here...but I'll leave it be.

You too eh?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I could respond with a joke here...but I'll leave it be.

You too eh?

As well as me.

This isn't the first case of someone leading a more or less normal life with half a brain. It's something that's been known for quite a while, if it happens early enough the brain can, and does, compensate by moving control to the other hemisphere.

 

[WillsBabe]

I read an article a few months back about a woman born "without" a brain. She has a "thin smear" of brain around her skull but the rest of her skull is empty and there is no more brain. She lives a perfectly normal life. (I can't find you a link because for some reason Google seems to have died for me.)

 

[RoJoHen]

I read an article a few months back about a woman born "without" a brain. She has a "thin smear" of brain around her skull but the rest of her skull is empty and there is no more brain. She lives a perfectly normal life. (I can't find you a link because for some reason Google seems to have died for me.)

She must be very light-headed.

 

[WillsBabe]

^ Empty headed, some have said...

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Neural plasticity is something that has been discussed for some time now, and may be used to explain how stroke patients get better and regain (to a certain extent) their lost mobility and hand function skills following weeks and months of rehabilitation.

This article illustrates the point on a much grander scale compared to, say, stroke - the rehabilitation took years, but on top of that she has had to learn how to speak, read, write, experience the full gamut of emotions, etc. (just like any child) but is handicapped by the fact that her left cerebrum was damaged (the phrase "half a brain" is quite obviously a misnomer - she still has an intact brainstem keeping her alive ). That her remaining cerebral cortex and white matter has learned new skills and adapted over these decades by developing and reinforcing new neural pathways is no less startling.

The brain truly does "learn".

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Neural plasticity is something that has been discussed for some time now, and may be used to explain how stroke patients get better and regain (to a certain extent) their lost mobility and hand function skills following weeks and months of rehabilitation.

This article illustrates the point on a much grander scale compared to, say, stroke - the rehabilitation took years, but on top of that she has had to learn how to speak, read, write, experience the full gamut of emotions, etc. (just like any child) but is handicapped by the fact that her left cerebrum was damaged (the phrase "half a brain" is quite obviously a misnomer - she still has an intact brainstem keeping her alive ). That her remaining cerebral cortex and white matter has learned new skills and adapted over these decades by developing and reinforcing new neural pathways is no less startling.

The brain truly does "learn".

I remember seeing a documentary, must have been about 13 years ago now, about some experiments they tried in the 70s (I think) where they disconnected the 2 hemispheres of the brain in some patients with a certain type of epilepsy, and they found in some people they literally acted like they had 2 minds, one side of the brain would decide to do something and because they didn't have a way of communicating it to the other side of the brain they wouldn't remember deciding to do anything but they would be doing it anyway.

I don't remember a lot of the detail but that always stuck with me, because I thought it showed how complex out thought patterns really can be.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Neural plasticity is something that has been discussed for some time now, and may be used to explain how stroke patients get better and regain (to a certain extent) their lost mobility and hand function skills following weeks and months of rehabilitation.

This article illustrates the point on a much grander scale compared to, say, stroke - the rehabilitation took years, but on top of that she has had to learn how to speak, read, write, experience the full gamut of emotions, etc. (just like any child) but is handicapped by the fact that her left cerebrum was damaged (the phrase "half a brain" is quite obviously a misnomer - she still has an intact brainstem keeping her alive ). That her remaining cerebral cortex and white matter has learned new skills and adapted over these decades by developing and reinforcing new neural pathways is no less startling.

The brain truly does "learn".

I remember seeing a documentary, must have been about 13 years ago now, about some experiments they tried in the 70s (I think) where they disconnected the 2 hemispheres of the brain in some patients with a certain type of epilepsy, and they found in some people they literally acted like they had 2 minds, one side of the brain would decide to do something and because they didn't have a way of communicating it to the other side of the brain they wouldn't remember deciding to do anything but they would be doing it anyway.

I don't remember a lot of the detail but that always stuck with me, because I thought it showed how complex out thought patterns really can be.

I read something about that at university too - corpus callosum bisection studies and epilepsy. Mind you (no pun intended), at the time I was trying to get my head round the difference between a medial lemniscus and a medial longitudinal fasciculus, and other such nerve pathways for exams and fun.

 

[Crusher Disciple]

If there's no right brain, what happens to creativity?

 

[Trekker4747]

If there's no right brain, what happens to creativity?

They go and work for Fox.

 

[Crusher Disciple]

 

[Holdfast]

I could respond with a joke here...but I'll leave it be.

You too eh?

As well as me.

I hate coming to threads late.

 

[Jadzia]

Mind you (no pun intended), at the time I was trying to get my head round the difference between a medial lemniscus and a medial longitudinal fasciculus, and other such nerve pathways for exams and fun.

As long as you didn't mistake a preganglionic fiber for a postganglionic nerve. No star trek fan could live that one down.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Mind you (no pun intended), at the time I was trying to get my head round the difference between a medial lemniscus and a medial longitudinal fasciculus, and other such nerve pathways for exams and fun.

As long as you didn't mistake a preganglionic fiber for a postganglionic nerve. No star trek fan could live that one down.

You'd be surprised at just how many people in our year actually did confuse the two.

Thank goodness for Dr. Bashir.

 

[Mallory]

I could respond with a joke here...but I'll leave it be.

You too eh?

As well as me.

I actually had go do something else for a while until the overwhelming urge passed.

 

[cultcross]

You too eh?

As well as me.

I actually had go do something else for a while until the overwhelming urge passed.

Screencaps have been taken for later use.

 

[Plecostomus]

Mods, can we get this moved to TNZ so we can flame the epic shit out of the OP? Please?

 

[Holdfast]

Mods, can we get this moved to TNZ so we can flame the epic shit out of the OP? Please?

It's no longer funny when the subtext becomes text. It didn't work for John Milton, but people still don't learn...