lyinlo
10-05-07, - 12:49 PM
:bouncy:
this story brings out the best of the bloggers
i love this one (abbreviated account below)
http://www.uncommonforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=311
Boy with 'no brain' gets 1st class honours!
Don't know if anyone saw this in the Guardian last week, but it's quite interesting:
"There's a young student at this university," neurologist Professor John Lorber of Sheffield University told Science magazine in December 1980, "who has an IQ of 126, has gained a first-class honours degree in mathematics, and is socially completely normal. And yet the boy has virtually no brain."
A scan revealed that the student had only 1mm of brain tissue lining the inside of his skull - fluid filled the area where the rest of his brain should have been. His was an extreme case of hydrocephalus, or "water on the brain", whereby cerebrospinal fluid fills the brain instead of circulating around it. Most sufferers can lead normal lives if regularly treated.
But if he had no brain, where was his mind?
Similar questions are raised by cases of "transplant memories". In 1988, Claire Sylvia received a heart and double-lung transplant. After the operation, she underwent some apparent personality changes: she began to have unusual (for her) cravings for beer, green peppers and chicken nuggets; she dreamed about beautiful women and experienced homosexual urges. She also dreamed of meetings with a young man called Tim.
and hating to burst y'all hydrocephalic bubble
http://decorabilia.blogspot.com/2005/01/if-i-only-had-no-brain.html
Talking to colleagues and contemporaries of Lorber, it was revealed he was probably greatly exaggerating the extent of brain loss in his cases. Said one source: "If the cortical mantle actually had been compressed to a couple of millimetres, it wouldn't even have shown up on his X-rays." Another agreed, adding that brain scans with modern techniques such as MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) show stretching, but not much real loss of brain weight with slow-onset hydrocephalus. He says the brain structure adapts to the space it is allowed: "The cortex and its connections are still there, even if grossly distorted."
After all the guy was researching in the 1960's and we all know how on target the white coat brigade were then
perhaps Cleeeever Duncombe may be pursuaded to add to the discussion on this one
I wait with bated breath
this story brings out the best of the bloggers
i love this one (abbreviated account below)
http://www.uncommonforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=311
Boy with 'no brain' gets 1st class honours!
Don't know if anyone saw this in the Guardian last week, but it's quite interesting:
"There's a young student at this university," neurologist Professor John Lorber of Sheffield University told Science magazine in December 1980, "who has an IQ of 126, has gained a first-class honours degree in mathematics, and is socially completely normal. And yet the boy has virtually no brain."
A scan revealed that the student had only 1mm of brain tissue lining the inside of his skull - fluid filled the area where the rest of his brain should have been. His was an extreme case of hydrocephalus, or "water on the brain", whereby cerebrospinal fluid fills the brain instead of circulating around it. Most sufferers can lead normal lives if regularly treated.
But if he had no brain, where was his mind?
Similar questions are raised by cases of "transplant memories". In 1988, Claire Sylvia received a heart and double-lung transplant. After the operation, she underwent some apparent personality changes: she began to have unusual (for her) cravings for beer, green peppers and chicken nuggets; she dreamed about beautiful women and experienced homosexual urges. She also dreamed of meetings with a young man called Tim.
and hating to burst y'all hydrocephalic bubble
http://decorabilia.blogspot.com/2005/01/if-i-only-had-no-brain.html
Talking to colleagues and contemporaries of Lorber, it was revealed he was probably greatly exaggerating the extent of brain loss in his cases. Said one source: "If the cortical mantle actually had been compressed to a couple of millimetres, it wouldn't even have shown up on his X-rays." Another agreed, adding that brain scans with modern techniques such as MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) show stretching, but not much real loss of brain weight with slow-onset hydrocephalus. He says the brain structure adapts to the space it is allowed: "The cortex and its connections are still there, even if grossly distorted."
After all the guy was researching in the 1960's and we all know how on target the white coat brigade were then
perhaps Cleeeever Duncombe may be pursuaded to add to the discussion on this one
I wait with bated breath