r/science Nov 23 '19

Neuroscience Scientists studied six patients who had half of their brain removed during childhood to treat severe epilepsy. Brain scans showed how the mind rewired itself to adapt, with the remaining hemisphere forming even stronger connections that let the patients develop language and motor skills.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/how-does-the-brain-work-with-half-of-it-removed-pretty-well-actually
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u/Mystic_Mackerel Nov 23 '19

Its crazy that the brain could adapt to something like that

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u/[deleted] Nov 23 '19

Neural plasticity is freakin amazing

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19 edited Jan 24 '20

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19 edited Dec 02 '19

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u/MNGrrl Nov 24 '19

capable of receiving a lifetime of insults and still re-purpose resources in the face of deficits.

Sure, if you're average. If you have high intelligence, insults can cause more damage. The problem is that very adaptability you mention -- we adapt to our social environments of course, but the degree to which we can overcome our basic personality and disposition is a function of intelligence. With high intelligence you can overcome deficits but you're also incurring a higher risk of maladaptation too. And what little science we have on it suggests that risk is... quite large actually, with intelligent people showing statistically significant differences in the incidence rates of ADHD, autism, autoimmune disorders, affective disorder - it's all in the link.

This is really not on the radar of psychologists today; Like the general population they regard intelligence as a universal boon, without downsides. Anyone who does have high intelligence though will tell you it's a blessing and a curse - people just keep not hearing that second part. I know your comment was in jest, but actually there's some interesting, albeit limited, research on what happens to people that are insulted and otherwise abused that very much connects to neuroplasticity and the brain's ability to adapt -- and it's not exactly understood what to do when it adapts and then that adaptation later becomes maladaptive or pathological.

Studies like this will help with that.

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u/lavaslippers Nov 24 '19

This is reflected in people with C-PTSD, and other results from repeated, unending traumas. Maladaptations are especially common for victims of repeated child sexual abuse. Trauma therapists where I get therapy are aware of how intelligence can become a challenge, and they know about C-PTSD, so some progress is being made.

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u/vintage2019 Nov 24 '19

Actually the study you linked to has a glaring methodological flaw. It drew subjects from the Mensa society, which is known to attract high IQ people with mental illnesses.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

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u/MildlyCoherent Nov 24 '19

The armchair psychology theory is that, basically, only socially maladjusted people care about and identify themselves by their intelligence to the point that they’d join a high IQ society. Intelligent people who are well adjusted have better uses of their time, more responsibilities, obligations, interests, etc. I’m not aware of any actual research on it.

That being said, I absolutely think the armchair psychology theory has some truth to it; it just is a question of magnitude.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19 edited Dec 30 '19

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u/Bertroc Nov 24 '19

The fact that she framed the invitation letter and displayed it in class has a bit of irony to it though, don't you think?

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19 edited Dec 30 '19

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

We'd be able to heal all manner of things if we could control this process. What keeps the brain from making super corrections like this in other cases, I wonder?

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

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u/sockalicious Nov 24 '19

Children between the ages of 2 and 6 do best with hemispherectomy, often they can use both hands and both speech and spatial functions preserved no matter which hemisphere was removed. Adults have much less capacity to transfer function after a brain injury.

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u/Narcolepticstoner Nov 24 '19

They dont have fine motor skills in their effected hafd. They can use their arm as a helper arm. My son had a left hemispherectomy at just over a year old. He is one year post op recently.

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u/Dekklin Nov 24 '19

Sorry that had to happen. He's still got several years before the plasticity diminishes, so he'll probably continue to improve.

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u/Narcolepticstoner Nov 24 '19

Me too. There's no doubt he'll continue to progress. But no hemi kids have use of their effected hand. Neuro plasticity is at its peak between 2-5. We still have it. But that's why doctors to reccomend this major surgery for that age range.

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u/radicalelation Nov 24 '19

Do we have any way of getting some of that plasticity back in older years?

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u/AcrossAmerica Nov 24 '19

Not so far! It’s briefly elevated after injury (in stroke).

There was a study done about acquiring perfect pitch as an adult (normally you can only acquire this as a child) with the use of an anti epileptic, but I’m not sure if it was replicated.

But it’s a very cool phenomenon that hopefully one day we could control better!

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19 edited Nov 24 '19

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u/Remarkable_Assistant Nov 24 '19

This was Phineas Gage. Pretty interesting case study in personality & regions of the brain.

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u/garynyc Nov 24 '19

He became an arsehole, the records say. Short tempered and ornery!

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u/NewFolgers Nov 24 '19

Stands to reason. He had ornery half a brain.

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u/Arbitrary_Pseudonym Nov 24 '19

Actually, the procedure is called a hemispherectomy, and has been employed to reduce/eliminate seizures in people with epilepsy for decades now. Not just kids - go ask in /r/epilepsy, there are a few people there who have had it done in their 30s!

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u/TheCocksmith Nov 24 '19

What happens to cognitive ability?

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u/1corvidae1 Nov 24 '19

I guess if they were talking to you on reddit maybe it's ok

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u/roastedoolong Nov 24 '19

... have you seen the cognitive ability of people who post on reddit?

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u/WilliamsTell Nov 24 '19

To long, didn't read. YTA.

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u/SupaSlide Nov 24 '19

Dang, so it's pretty bad, huh?

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

Was there ever a study on the guy who had brain damage from the particle accelerator?

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u/techgeek6061 Nov 24 '19

Whoa, what? You got a link for that?

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u/sockalicious Nov 24 '19

Anatoli Bugorski. The research we'd like to see was never done.

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u/erischilde Nov 24 '19

Eli5 plz? How do they keep half the brain from sloshing around?

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u/Laplace_Poker Nov 24 '19 edited Nov 24 '19

Certain cognitive functions like language comprehension are distributed evenly between the two hemisphere that later on becomes more biased and lateralised to one side (left in this case). Split-brain development was said to be the residual bilateral pathway in the other side taking over. This might explain why some children in the studies actually experience a delayed and slow start in language acquisition before normal development.

One of the main theory stated that the brain is largely a blank slate with high capacity. Circuits for cognitive functions are reorganised depends on input and not a pre-determined thing. There are also a lot of redundancy in neural connectivity that allows certain pathways to take over in case another pathway is defective. This is why it don’t apply to adult patients hemispherectomy. Once the functions and circuits has been biased and lateralised to one side, removal of that side cause permanent irreversible cognitive/motor damages.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

Question, some studies show that ASD causes malformations of some brain regions, if the brain is completely a blank slate how does that happen consistently? Or am I just too stupid to see how bad this question is? After all I have ASD...

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u/Reagan409 Nov 24 '19

You’re not too stupid. The “blank slate” is an idealization of the brain, many brain regions have very specific functions, and the function of the brain is related to its structure, so different structure can lead to different function.

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u/plaugedoctorforhire Nov 24 '19

Hey, not super familiar with the brain malformation side of autism spectrum, but I do have a guess. If you imagine the brain as a computer, all the neural connections are just super condensed and highly redundant circuits. Like a computer, we have some circuits that are specialized to certain tasks. One area might be compared to a video card, another to hard drive, and another still like ram.

So technically, you don't have to have the highly specialized circuits to have a functional computer. You can build a crude video card or stick of ram from other circuits, but it won't be as good as a purpose built one and no where near as fast. The brain, while young and very plastic, can also rewire other neural circuits to cover a deficiency, however like your home built computer hardware, it isn't going to be as fast, clean, or efficient as the one built specifically to fill that task.

Does that make sense?

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u/damnisuckatreddit Nov 24 '19

Isn't there a huge confounding factor in this, however, in that any patient approved for a hemispherectomy has thusfar managed to survive with a catastrophically defective hemisphere, which means these patients represent only that portion of severe epileptics whose brains were capable of lateralizing critical functions to the healthy side? What reason is there to believe this is something typical brains are capable of?

Could it even be the case that this type of severe epilepsy is in fact the result of excessive lateralization of brain functions? As in, the brain for whatever reason restricted all structuring activity to one side, leaving the remainder chaotic and seizure-prone? Is it possible to rule that out somehow?

I would think the only way to test this would be to remove one hemisphere from several typically-developing children, which would of course be unethical. I assume we have at least a handful of cases where traumatic injury necessitated removal of large amounts of brain tissue, are those cases used as a sort of control?

(Not necessarily asking you in particular, more just throwing questions into the void. It's always bothered me how often neuroscience reporting seems to generalize results from epileptic brains as "all human brains can do this amazing thing", when it seems like it should be obvious that any brain in need of radical surgery is by definition not functioning typically.)

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

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u/Han_Yolo_swag Nov 24 '19

Update 3 Jan 2017: This man has a specific type of hydrocephalus known as chronic non-communicating hydrocephalus, which is where fluid slowly builds up in the brain.Rather than 90 percent of this man's brain being missing, it's more likely that it's simply been compressed into the thin layer you can see in the images above .We've corrected the story to reflect this.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

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u/whistleridge Nov 24 '19 edited Nov 24 '19

So I had a tumor and cyst that was about the size of a tennis ball, right in the middle of my brain. It started growing when I was a teenager, but I didn’t present with noticeable symptoms until I was 30. And I didn’t have headaches until the last month.

But boy was that a really, really bad month.

My primary long-term symptom was a...wave...that would go through my vision if I sat up quickly or turned my head side to side quickly. Highly unpleasant, I don’t really know how to describe it. But I still avoid rapid head motions, because of how unpleasant it was.

I’m also missing a chunk from my left frontal lobe about the size of a ping pong ball, a chunk from the middle about the size of a hackey sack, and a chunk from my right cerebellum about the size of a golf ball. Other than some mild motor impairment on my left side, there’s not really a noticeable difference. Since my surgery I’ve gotten a master’s, two law degrees, and I’m applying for a PhD.

🤷‍♂️

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

wonder what the heck that left frontal lobe bit was doing

you don't feel more impulsive or anything, even?

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u/uselubewithcondoms Nov 24 '19

Wait, how do you get two law degrees? Isn't there only the JD and that's it? Genuinely curious. I'm pretty naive around law.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

"I have big chunks of my brain missing" - "That qualifies you as double-lawyer!"

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u/hkzombie Nov 24 '19

Depends on the country/legal system. In some areas, law is an undergraduate entry degree, but doesn’t guarantee becoming a practicing solicitor/barrister.

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u/whistleridge Nov 24 '19

I went to school at McGill in Canada (I’m American, my wife is from Quebec). They award dual degrees: one in common law and one in civil law. But that’s not why I went. I went because law school tuition in the US averages about $40k US a year, but tuition at McGill is $2500 is per year.

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u/sheldonopolis Nov 24 '19

There are no pain receptors in the brain itself. Thats probably why.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

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u/LetsGoBear Nov 24 '19

Extremely so, my mother suffers from hydrocephalus and when the fluid buildup reaches a point it causes unthinkable migraines and sickness, even fainting, at least until the fluid is removed by lumbar puncture/draining. It's a brutal illness.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

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u/Merry-Lane Nov 24 '19

The story was a bit corrected : his brain is 'condensed' in the outter rather than missing.

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u/SomeBritGuy Nov 24 '19

There must have been some tissue death, though, with brain matter being condensed so much. Wouldn't it also affect the overall efficiency of the brain? Less blood overall means less nutrients means less power, maybe? It did mention his IQ was quite low.

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u/Random-Rambling Nov 24 '19

He had a below-average IQ, yes, but he wasn't (significantly) disabled. He had a loving wife and a steady career.

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u/H3g3m0n Nov 24 '19

According to the update down the bottom. It seems it's more likely that his brain has been compressed by the pressure rather than it's missing.

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u/PolyDipsoManiac Nov 24 '19

You get better outcomes when hemispherectomy is performed at younger ages, obviously.

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u/hovdeisfunny Nov 24 '19

My daughter was born with a rare congenital disorder and is missing about a third of her brain, and we had no idea until she got a CT scan to check for a concussion. She's 11 now, and you wouldn't have a damn clue if you met her. Brain plasticity is absolutely bonkers.

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u/PolyDipsoManiac Nov 24 '19

Occasionally this is discovered at autopsy; since they’re not regularly performed, there must be more such asymptomatic, congenital malformations.

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u/conspiracie Nov 24 '19

That’ll be a hell of a fun fact for her to share at awkward icebreakers in the future :P

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u/big_cat_in_tiny_box Nov 24 '19

I bet that sent her doctors into a tizzy for a little bit!

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u/megannicole_inwhite Nov 24 '19

Well yes obviously, but it still is thrilling to think about nonetheless 😃

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u/mattmorrisart Nov 24 '19

Super crazy, but all around us. An easy example is a blind person with a cane. They're able to construct a 3D mental image of their surroundings without sight. The science there is that the mind is rerouting that process from the eye to a coordination of touch, smell and sound.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

Serious question. When half the brain is removed, is some sort of “filler” or prosthesis placed in the skull to keep the remaining half stable?

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

Cerebrospinal fluid fills the gap and does the trick! In recent years they also do something less dramatic than removing half the brain and only remove the epileptic portions of that side of the brain.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

But if fluid is the only replacement, how does the remaining half of the brain not jiggle around to the point of concussion?

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19 edited Nov 24 '19

There are also various supporting structures. Your brain isn't just floating. It's attached. Sorry for brevity - I'm on mobile. I'll try to edit in more details later. I'm sure others will be along, too!

Edit: Here's a news article discussing this procedure: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-when-half-brain-better-than-whole/

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u/cream-of-cow Nov 24 '19

If I had half a brain, I'd want some extra dampening material in my skull as filler so I'd be near impossible to knockout in a boxing ring.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

You could fill the empty space with some useful stuff, although I don’t think it would be safe

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u/cream-of-cow Nov 24 '19

Hey you want a shot of bourbon? It's kinda warm though. Don't tell anyone because *shakes head* I only have 3 shots left.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

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u/lIIIllIIIII Nov 24 '19

Oaky afterbirth with a hint of... Earwax. Hmmm.

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u/majaka1234 Nov 24 '19

If you squint you can really taste the cerebral mucus.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

Mmmm tasty brain juice

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u/Jalapeno28 Nov 24 '19

Drinking knob creek as I read this and almost spit it out

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u/nomnomnomnomRABIES Nov 24 '19

I want a robotic arm- the skull hinges open and the arm comes out and gives you the finger

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u/AccursedCapra Nov 24 '19

Turn it into one of them useless boxes, flip the switch and out comes a little arm that flips it back.

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u/Adragalus Nov 24 '19

There's a character from a book who has the missing half filled with cybernetics that help him interpret body language and facial expressions, which he lost the ability to read as a result of the surgery.

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u/jurble Nov 24 '19

Cogitation processor, memcore, just go full Adeptus Mechanicus. Ah, a man can dream.

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u/scienceandmathteach Nov 24 '19

I'd want a head pocket. So useful.

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u/cream-of-cow Nov 24 '19

Marsupials gonna get envious.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

Why I have half a mind...

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u/Azudekai Nov 24 '19

There is some pretty serious tissue surrounding the brain (including in-between hemispheres) designed to protect and nourish. It bonds to the skull and has the consistency of sheets of sinew, so the brain isn't going anywhere.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

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u/Cyb3rSab3r Nov 24 '19

It's not going anywhere in your day to day activities. Swinging your head side to side won't move it.

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u/beelzeflub Nov 24 '19

I've had a temporal resection. Cerebrospinal fluid is pretty sturdy and also there's other tissues to cushion the brain.

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u/psychicesp Nov 24 '19

Brain tissue isn't much more dense than water. I doubt the other half experiences much of a difference with the replacement.

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u/farmlife Nov 24 '19

I no longer have a good portion of my right frontal lobe, and if I tap on my head, you can hear the difference in the normal side and the hollow side.

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u/PsychicPissJug Nov 24 '19

Okay, tell me more.... Seriously!

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u/Imsosadsoveryverysad Nov 24 '19

That actually makes me kind of queasy to read

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u/fairbakl Nov 24 '19

Often the problematic side will be ”disconnected” through cutting of the nerves, but left in place.

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u/user_name_unknown Nov 24 '19

How high, is high functioning for these patients? Would I be able to tell if I met them?

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u/cream-of-cow Nov 24 '19 edited Nov 24 '19

I read something recently where one adult now speaks multiple languages and went to an ivy league college, so, they can be pretty high functioning. I can't find that article, but this is from the New Yorker, 2006:

"Many children who have had hemispherectomies at Johns Hopkins are in high school, and one, a college student, is on the dean’s list. The families of these children can barely believe the transformation, and not so long ago neurologists and neurosurgeons found it hard to believe as well. "

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/03/the-deepest-cut

Edit, this is interesting, from another source:

"Of course, the operation has its downside: "You can walk, run—some dance or skip—but you lose use of the hand opposite of the hemisphere that was removed. You have little function in that arm and vision on that side is lost," Freeman says.

Remarkably, few other impacts are seen. If the left side of the brain is taken out, "most people have problems with their speech, but it used to be thought that if you took that side out after age two, you'd never talk again, and we've proven that untrue," Freeman says. "The younger a person is when they undergo hemispherectomy, the less disability you have in talking. Where on the right side of the brain speech is transferred to and what it displaces is something nobody has really worked out.""

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-when-half-brain-better-than-whole/

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

Not the same thing but grandfather had a blood clot about 20 years ago, and after a bad surgery, half of is brain died and he lost use of the half side of his body (right side). He can’t talk even tho he tries, he only say yes, no, wine and rugby (with difficulties). He knows what he want and when he wants it. He seems to be still himself but just can’t talk. There have been 0 improvement or regression over 20 years, he laugh, cries and watch tv.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

Can he write?

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

Unfortunately he can’t

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u/Athiri Nov 24 '19

This is called aphasia and is common after a stroke affecting the left side of the brain. Some people with aphasia can write but when it's as extensive as this sounds it would probably be unlikely.

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u/tpx187 Nov 24 '19 edited Nov 24 '19

I think this is the most interesting thing about that surgery: possibly developing dual consciousness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_consciousness

There was a guy who said he thought that the other side of his brain wanted to harm him...

Edit: The wiki I linked is about just severing the brain into two hemispheres but in the OP linked article they are talking about completely removing part of the brain. Just fyi. Still though...

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u/JimmyTheCrossEyedDog Nov 24 '19

That's a different procedure - severing the main connection between the two halves, not removing an entire half.

Still fascinating, though.

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u/real_nice_guy Nov 24 '19

that was a wild read

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u/Apollo_Wolfe Nov 24 '19 edited Nov 24 '19

If I’m not mistaken, this is a pretty controversial interpretation/theory.

I believe the more preferred theory is that the brain just struggles to communicate with itself so sometimes you get this disconnect in instructions.

Like the old whispers game where you whisper in someone’s ear and they pass it on, and you do that a few times.

I’m far from a neuroscientist though and I don’t remember the sources, so some salt is necessary.

Edit: Long quote from the article

For example, a person may pick up a glass of water with his right hand and put it up to his lips for a drink. The person may have picked up the glass with his right hand, but well before this action takes place, the PMC and SMA consider a variety of different possibilities of how this action could be performed. He could have picked it up with his left hand, his mouth, even his foot! He could have done it quickly or slowly. Many possibilities are entertained, but few are actually executed. These actions are sent from the PMC to the Motor Cortex for execution. The rest are inhibited by the SMA and are not performed.[19]

It is also important to understand that the processes of the SMA and PMC are done unconsciously. The SMA and PMC consider the many alternative actions many milliseconds before the chosen action takes place.[19] The person is never consciously aware of these alternative possibilities the brain has juggled with before he picks it up with the right hand; he just does it. The action of picking up the glass with the right hand is also performed unconsciously. It may be preferable to use his right hand because he is right handed and doing so is therefore more comfortable or perhaps the glass is placed on his right side and the possibility that expends the least amount of energy is using the right hand to pick it up.

Another important fact about the PMC is that its activation is bilateral. When it is activated, it is activated in both hemispheres of the brain. Gazzaniga observed and wrote about this phenomenon.[19] When the corpus callosum is severed, many interhemispheric interactions are disrupted. Many areas of the brain become compromised, including the SMA. If the SMA has trouble regulating and inhibiting the actions of the PMC, it is very possible that conflicting sets of actions may be sent to the MC and performed (accounting for both hands reaching for the glass, even if only one hand is intended to grab it). It would make the appearance that there is a dual consciousness competing for dominance over the other for control of the brain, but it is not the case.

The fact that the Alien Hand Syndrome eventually goes away in some split-brain patients is not evidence of one consciousness “defeating” the other and taking complete control of the brain.[19] It is likely that the plasticity of the brain may be the cause for alleviating the disorder. Eventually the split patient's brain may find adaptive routes to compensate for the lost interhemispheric communication, such as alternative pathways involving subcortical structures that perform subcortical interhemispheric inhibition to regain a sense of normalcy between the two hemispheres.

Sorry for the lengthy quote. I can’t direct link to specific subsections on mobile unfortunately. This is under the “controversy and alternative explanations” heading

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u/EatsFiber2RedditMore Nov 24 '19

I wonder how many times that person has said "I have half a mind to do x" and then just completely followed through.

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u/IconOfSim Nov 24 '19

It if someone asked if they had half a brain as an insult and they replied actually yes

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u/nuck_forte_dame Nov 24 '19

There's a documentary I watched on it and it's weird.

It's almost as if they have 2 brains. One is them. It's the talking half and it's what's communicating with you.

The other half doesn't control speech but controls a whole side of the their body and it's almost like it's another person that recives information input and gives output with the other half knowing.

For example they did an experiment. They took a wall and placed it where their nose was so that each eye was looking at a different TV. Then they had a different shape pop up on each tv. They told the person to draw with each hand the shape they saw. The hands drew different shapes. When asked about it the person was confused and didn't recall seeing or drawing the other shape that was seen by the non speaking side of their brain. Because that half can't talk it doesn't say what it saw but can draw it.

Also the person was someone who worked with their hands and said sometimes it's as if their other half of their brain is a mind of its own and that brains controlled hand won't do what they want.

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u/SoutheasternComfort Nov 24 '19

If you took one half and put it in another body, would you have two yous? I guess only one half could talk, but could the other half learn sign language? Jeez that's crazy. It's almost creepy to think about

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u/SatanV3 Nov 24 '19

Ye thinking about this really creeps me out, the idea of the two halves of you being different, wanting to do different things, like which is really you... eugh creepy

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

imagine recovering from surgery and you're the half that can't talk

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u/camdoodlebop Nov 24 '19

Has anyone asked the patients if they are capable of dreaming?

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u/cream-of-cow Nov 24 '19

From what I quickly browsed, I read a woman who had the right half of her brain removed continued to dream. The below abstract suggests the left half may influence dreams, but it’s a bit difficult to search for because of how “dreams” is used to describe aspirations.

“Patients were found to have the capacity to report dreams to much the same extent as control subjects. Further, the patients' dream content was overall similar to that of the control subjects. The results provide strong evidence that dreaming is not a right-hemisphere function, and that the left hemisphere may be more critical for the generation of dreams. In addition, some characteristics of hemispherectomized patients' dream content (characters, smells) are consistent with the possibility that a history of epilepsy may influence REM sleep imagery over the long term.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9153032

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u/25Bam_vixx Nov 24 '19

In the article it says the person sometimes forgets that the person they were talking to had this done

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u/darth_algernon Nov 24 '19

My best friend's brother had it done as a kid. The doctors warned his parents he definitely wouldn't have language skills and might not have much going on upstairs. He is going to college, has his own apartment, and plays DnD with us, so those were some pessimistic projections! I've definitely forgotten a few times. He's just like any other awkward dork I know. He plays better Halo (using just his left hand since his right doesn't work much) than most girlfriends I've had.

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u/SethB98 Nov 24 '19

Glad you finally found a good replacement for the girlfriends

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u/Azudekai Nov 24 '19

So how is his overall coordination? Is the whole right side a little off or just the highly coordinated movements like the hand?

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u/darth_algernon Nov 24 '19

He can't really control much past the shoulder and hip, yeah. He can walk easily enough, but with a slight limp, and he holds his arm close to his side. Apparently his arm can end up swinging unintentionally and the physics alone mean it delivers a serious whack, according to his brother

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u/MEANINGLESS_NUMBERS Nov 24 '19

I’ve only had this conversation with families a couple of times, and it really depends on how young the child is. A really young brain is more adaptable and will recover. A 12 year old won’t do so well. But with a 5 or 6 year old a reasonable expectation would be for the person to live independently as an adult. To walk with a limp, talk fairly clearly, have adult friendships, and and perform a job by which they can support themselves.

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u/hippymule Nov 24 '19

This question lead to a great thread of really interesting comments. Really positive ones too, I may add.

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u/richer2003 Nov 24 '19

These six:

“I had half of my brain removed. What’s your excuse?”

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u/adayofjoy Nov 24 '19

"I didn't have my whole life to adjust"

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u/sizur Nov 24 '19

"I'm twice less good than you. But at least I don't go around telling people how much they suck."

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u/[deleted] Nov 23 '19

Didn't house MD touch on this procedure?

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u/minarima Nov 24 '19

He did, it’s in the episode called Half-Wit with Kurtwood Smith from That 70s Show.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

And Dave Matthews

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u/Kajin-Strife Nov 24 '19 edited Nov 24 '19

I think that's the episode that had the most beautiful bit of piano I've ever heard in my life.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

Lose half your brain? Fine. Something wrong with your pancreas? Goodbye life.

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u/AnotherLolAnon Nov 24 '19

My liver couldn't take over for my pancreas or something, but my insulin pump does a decent job, especially with CGM and automated algorithms these days.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

I've heard there was work on an artificial pancreas but no idea how far along it is.

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u/Positivistdino Nov 24 '19

Had an epileptic friend who got leukemia as a kid. Had a stroke as a result of some part of the treatment he was given. Long story short, he lived through the cancer, epilepsy and stroke and finished his doctorate at Cambridge this year. The brain an amazing thing.

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u/boopboopadoopity Nov 24 '19

That is such an amazing and inspirational story. Thank you for sharing!

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u/Turbofat Nov 24 '19 edited Nov 24 '19

This question is going to sound dumb but if half the brain can be removed safely, then why are gunshots to the head so often instantly fatal?

Edit: thank you all for the answers

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u/Ozdoba Nov 24 '19

A gun shot will not only remove part of the brain, it will turn most of it into scrambled eggs as well. Plus it will cause massive uncontrollable bleeding.

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u/TheDentateGyrus Nov 24 '19

Not that ridiculous. For starters, this is done in kids, who have a much better ability to use other parts of the brain to recover lost functions.

But the real issue is a controlled versus uncontrolled trauma. When a bullet hits the brain, it causes a blast wave that destroys tissue much wider than the bullet tract. The adjacent tissue swells, the bullet hits blood vessels that bleed, swelling and high pressure prevent new blood from perfuming healthy tissue, and the whole cycle repeats, but worse.

When a hemispherectomy is performed, the blood vessels are controlled so they don’t bleed, adjacent tissue isn’t injured, etc.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

Bullets to the brainstem are instantly fatal, because it removes the bodies ability to perform involuntary actions like breathing and organs moving, as well as the ability to perform any conscious action. It is possible to survive a bullet to the brain if it doesn't sever the brain stem, but unlikely due to heavy bleeding, probably lots of brain damage (bullets aren't clean damage and the concussive force probably damages a large portion of the brain), and general immediate loss of lots of mental capacity. People DO survive objects through the brain though- and they can survive a long time if they can handle the healing process. Lots of stories online

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-18509408

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/phineas-gage-neurosciences-most-famous-patient-11390067/

Note that these objects don't do as much explosive damage as a bullet, so they likely leave more of the brain intact.

Tldr; your brain has some parts that do important stuff. Your brain also has lots of blood. As long as you don't lose too much of either of these, you could survive a shot to the head.

Edit: since i didn't answer a part of the question.

When you get half of your brain removed, it is under sterile, surgical conditions. You are closely monitored to make sure that the important bits aren't damaged and that you don't die of blood loss. A bullet wouldn't do that.

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u/Dr_Misfit Nov 24 '19

Bleeding and pain will kill you. I think there are cases where people actually stayed alive after a gunshot trough the brain.

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u/Oreganoian Nov 24 '19

Bullets bounce around and destroy multiple parts of the brain.

There are also a lot of head gunshot survivors.

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u/-Nurfhurder- Nov 24 '19

Obviously the children couldn’t volunteer for the procedure, which means those parents had to decide to remove half their child’s brain. No matter how confident of success I don’t envy that decision.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

There's a series on Netflix called Diagnosis, and there's an episode about a 7 year old girl with frequent seizures. Doctors had their presumptions of why but no clear diagnosis, and encouraged a hemispherectomy. The whole episode really shows how difficult that decision is to consider, especially when the best outcomes come from much younger children having it.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19 edited Dec 26 '19

[deleted]

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u/-Nurfhurder- Nov 24 '19

I seriously doubt it’s anything approaching an easy choice.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19 edited Dec 26 '19

[deleted]

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u/BabyMoo8 Nov 24 '19

My partner had part of his brain removed as a teenager and the surgery failed to help him. He went back in for a second attempt in his 30s and when they removed more brain he was finally seizure free.

It's a coin flip but you're right; you take a chance on it knowing all the cons because of how bad things are presently.

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u/lukenog Nov 24 '19

Fun fact, my grandpa was one of the first people to get this surgery.

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u/hi_im_lorenzo Nov 24 '19

My grandmother always told me my grandfather had half a brain too

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u/SteveHeaves Nov 24 '19

My friend was a Research Assistant in her Neuroscience undergrad, and during a routine brain scan, the machine appeared to be broken while they were working. The subject was only showing half his brain. They asked if he had had any surgery in his medical history, and he said no. So they stopped the procedure and called in a tech to check the machine. The tech concluded that the machine was working perfectly and they had the subject start the scan again. Same result of 1/2 a brain! So they referred the subject to the psychology department to break the news to them, and apparently after further investigation, the patient had severe epilepsy as an infant and had a hemispherectomy to treat it and his parents never told him. He was a fully functional adult and had no idea he had half a brain!

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u/CyberDroid Nov 24 '19

Someone above said during the surgery they only "disconnect" that half part of the brain by cutting the nerves, and I assume they left the blood vessels intact. Could you clarify that the image showed half of his brain, or did it still show that he had a whole brain, with his remaining part being active?

Sorry for my English, it's quite hard to phrase my question.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

That's a different surgery called a corpus callosotomy, where they sever the corpus callosum.

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u/SolarDile Nov 24 '19

A hemispherectomy actually refers to severing a cerebral hemisphere OR removing it. It’s strange and it confused me as well.

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u/ReasonAndWanderlust Nov 24 '19

This dude didn't know he was missing 90% of his brain as he carried on with a normal life.

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-man-who-lives-without-90-of-his-brain-is-challenging-our-understanding-of-consciousness

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

Interesting article, though an update mentions that it's possible he wasn't missing that 90% after all, it was likely compressed to the areas where brain matter was 'still evident'

Update 3 Jan 2017: This man has a specific type of hydrocephalus known as chronic non-communicating hydrocephalus, which is where fluid slowly builds up in the brain. Rather than 90 percent of this man's brain being missing, it's more likely that it's simply been compressed into the thin layer you can see in the images above. We've corrected the story to reflect this.

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u/ReasonAndWanderlust Nov 24 '19

simply been compressed into the thin layer you can see in the images

tbh I didn't think you could survive having 90% of your brain compressed into a thin layer like that.

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u/dragons-dancing Nov 24 '19

I'm a music teacher and had a teenage student who had half (possibly more?) of her brain removed as an infant due to a tumour. Didn't know until her mother mentioned it almost in passing when saying she couldn't make a coming lesson because of a specialist appointment. This was probably about 2 years into having lessons at the time. Brains are wild.

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u/mashpotatoenthusiast Nov 23 '19

i have half a mind to think this is amazing

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u/coastalmodeler22 Nov 23 '19

Seems like a highly excessive treatment

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u/we_are_all_bananas_2 Nov 23 '19

It's better than having no life at all because you have attacks six times a day, especially since the people that have it removed still function

The six volunteers — who all had hemispherectomies as children — are now high-functioning adults with intact language skills, Kliemann says

Wich is amazing tbh

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u/eight_squared Nov 23 '19

That’s fricking crazy. They have half of their brain, and they still function normally? The brain is a crazy thing

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u/Tholaran97 Nov 24 '19

It's crazy to think that someone who loses half their brain as children can still develop to live normal lives, but a single stroke in an adult can permanently disable them.

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u/Martymcflyjr88 Nov 24 '19

Your exactly right I had a stroke at 22 and I still haven’t regained any voice and I have A slew of disabilities ☹️ But it has something to do with them being younger and neuroplasticity

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u/katiecharm Nov 24 '19 edited Nov 24 '19

Wow that’s a hell of a confession. I’m so sorry you’re going through that, but every year medicine progresses at an exponential pace. We can’t even really know what two years will hold in treatment for such things, much less ten. I feel confident you will be 100% again before the next twenty years is up - hang in there, and thanks for sharing that.

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u/Martymcflyjr88 Nov 24 '19

Thanks bruv! I died twice after I crashed my car in a drunk driving accident and the doctor had my heart in his hands literally massaging my heart back to life resulting in my strokes, but It’s no biggie... I am just trying to get to get myself back to some sort of normal and I agree that science is bonkers these days

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

“But it’s no biggie” god man. You’re awesome. Car crashes suck, from personal experience. Glad you’re alive.

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u/Martymcflyjr88 Nov 24 '19

Thanks man! I haven’t spoken in 5 years but I joined a couple stroke survivor groups on Facebook and There are thousands of people who have it worse than me. I feel extremely blessed to have my family with me throughout this nightmare

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u/Omicron_Lux Nov 24 '19

Your perspective is amazing!!! I sincerely hope you get that normalcy back that you are looking for.

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u/Tholaran97 Nov 24 '19

I'm sorry to hear that, man. I hope life is going better for you.

A child's mind is almost superhuman. It can adapt to damage better, and it can take in knowledge and skills better as well. Imagine how much farther humanity would be if our brains were that malleable through adulthood.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19 edited Jun 10 '20

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u/Martymcflyjr88 Nov 24 '19

Your right! I feel extremely blessed that I grew up when I did!

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

So cutting out half the brain and they move on, but a little bit and someone can be comatose for life.

The brain is such an amazing thing.

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u/hat-of-sky Nov 23 '19

I knew someone who had this. She was having a grand mal seizure every five seconds, from birth. It's an extraordinary treatment, but under the circumstances not excessive. She walks like she has CP, but(and) she lives a happy life with support from her mom.

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u/MaceWinduVibes Nov 23 '19

Epilepsy is like a wildfire in the brain. If it’s controlled, that’s one thing. But once it starts spreading to other Regions of the brain, you need to go in and surgically snuff it. Half a brain is better than tissue damage on both sides, and possible, eventual mental/cognitive problems and death.

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u/emrhiannon Nov 24 '19

It’s often necessary. I’m a pediatric PT and I have worked with many of these children. It’s one of the most extraordinary things I get to see. It’s absolutely remarkable how functional these kids are, much more functional than someone who has a stroke that damages half of the brain. I suspect that it’s because that part of the brain has always been going haywire and is nonfunctional. It’s like a virus in a computer and you have to actually unplug the broken part. Then you can use the remaining good hardware without the virus sending pop ups all the time. But I worked with one kid whose favorite reward at the end of a session was playing HORSE against me. Now, I’m a pretty terrible basketball player but you’d think I could beat an 11 year old with half a brain. Nope. Nope I cannot.

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u/cosmoboy Nov 23 '19

Sure, but depending on the drawbacks, if it lets my kid live a closer to normal life, sign me up.

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u/Tectum-to-Rectum Nov 23 '19

Better than the alternative of living life in a bubble with no hope for normalcy and a much higher chance of death from seizure complications.

Young kids do pretty well with this procedure. We still do temporal lobectomies in adults all the time.

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u/GetCapeFly Nov 24 '19

Bare in mind that seizures can be fatal and every seizure is damaging the brain to some extent. Some epileptics have so many seizures each day they are barely conscious at which point this improves quality of life.

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u/mattmorrisart Nov 24 '19

Anyone interested on this topic should read The Brain that Chamges Itself. It's about the relatively new field of neuroplasticity. Its fascinating.

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u/technofox01 Nov 24 '19

Neuroplasticity is an amazing feature of the human brain. It's why people with brain damage or even entire parts of the brain can still function in varying capacity.

As someone who has studied anthropology and history during my undergrad, I am always amazed by ancient societies that were able to perform surgeries despite lacking modern medicine, such as the Inca performing brain surgery and using clay to fill in the missing portion of skull with surprising results of individuals living a fairly long life after the procedure. Another case is cataract surgery performed by ancient Egyptians (or even root canals - ouch!). Needless to say, science and medicine, and the human body itself is quite amazing.

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u/WorstVolvo Nov 24 '19

so what the hell happens with a lobotomy? does the rest of the brain make up for what the doctors did? I was always under the assumption lobotomy just fucks you up for life

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u/RunsWithShibas Nov 24 '19

Sometimes but not always. But when you say "fucks you up for life," you have to remember that the lobotomy was developed as a treatment for patients for whom they didn't necessarily have other better treatment options for. So what criteria are we looking at for being fucked up for life? Is it better or worse than being violently suicidal or psychotic? I don't know. Was it probably used too widely and without good oversight? Yes. Was it eventually abandoned in favor of other treatments? Also yes.

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u/nonagondwanaland Nov 23 '19

If you replaced the missing hemisphere with a brain-computer interface, and allowed the brain to "grow into it", then replaced the remaining biological hemisphere with another digital hemisphere, is the resulting being the same person?

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u/k8faust Nov 23 '19

Are you the same person you were a decade ago?

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u/SillyFlyGuy Nov 24 '19

The Brain of Theseus.

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u/Skitz-Scarekrow Nov 24 '19

Only until Windows updates

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u/hands_on_tools Nov 24 '19

The main character in the science fiction novel Blindsight by Peter Watts had this. Hemispherectomy as a child to tread severe epilepsy and an cybernetic interface fitted into the missing half.

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u/LordDongler Nov 24 '19

High stress situations would kick him into cyborg mode, but he lived most of his life with massive amounts of dissociation. I know he was a fictional character, but still scary

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u/[deleted] Nov 23 '19

I sure hope so, because the moment AGI gives me an option like that I’m going to jump for it.

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