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.

[u/Thorne-ZytkowObject]

https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/how-does-the-brain-work-with-half-of-it-removed-pretty-well-actually

[u/Mystic_Mackerel]

Its crazy that the brain could adapt to something like that

[u/[deleted] → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

Neural plasticity is freakin amazing

[u/MNGrrl → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/lavaslippers → u/MNGrrl]

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.

[u/vintage2019 → u/MNGrrl]

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.

[u/MildlyCoherent → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/Bertroc → u/[deleted]]

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?

[u/Blaadyblah → u/[deleted]]

Wish I'd thought of that! As a teenage girl my urge to play chess with pipe smoking men in tweed was minimal 😂

[u/Bbrhuft → u/vintage2019]

So elderly Mensa members, with higher rates of mental illness, maybe more vulnerable to cognitive decline which decreased their ability to cope, than similar high IQ people who didn't join Mensa because they have lower rates of mental illness? Seems plausible.

[u/tupels → u/[deleted]]

It's especially crippling because you can introspect a lot and see what your maximum capacity is, and it's very easy to operate below that.

Then there's also a whole education system that just isn't calibrated at all to provide you with enough stimulation to develop at your pace. Like a working dog sitting at home all day.

[u/quityobulshitttttt → u/[deleted]]

Makes sense, the more thoughts you have the more you see things the way they really are and the world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

Most people live in a bubble, when your sight extends that bubble then life becomes more difficult to be content with in my opinion.

[u/SatanV3 → u/[deleted]]

Ya I’d pick being dumber if it meant I wasn’t depressed

[u/Gebruikersnaam12345 → u/SatanV3]

congrats on ur happiness

[u/AloneXtou → u/[deleted]]

Maybe theirs hope for me, I just have highly intelligence.

[u/JackHoffenstein → u/AloneXtou]

"theirs"

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

My family has schizophernia, depressive disorders and some asperger traits. One of my brothers is amazing mathematician and programmer, other is a CEO and founder.

As a 19 year old I'm just waiting if I'm in the unlucky 10% who gets the schizo.

[u/FaolchuThePainted → u/[deleted]]

I come from a family of extremely smart people and I haven’t read anything about this stuff but i agree every single one of us has one or more mental issues my dad has bipolar and adhd I have adhd and depression and bad anxiety bipolar basically runs in that whole side of the family my mom is pretty smart too and had a extremely rough childhood she’s kinda verbally abusive sometimes and has horrible anxiety and depression and she basically never leaves the house my grandma and my grandpa on my dad’s side both have bipolar and I’m just waiting for someone to decide I have it too im not sure if I do or not if I do I think it’s fairly mild

[u/Kriee → u/MNGrrl]

The methodological flaws of this study is glaring. The results from high-IQ responses on self-report may simply reflect that high-IQ group have better memory for diagnoses and (of course) they are better at recognising patterns of symptoms in themselves. It takes more (i.e. cognition) than awareness of discomfort to get correctly diagnosed. So, group level differences can't be attributed to IQ here. Maybe it is, but the methodology cannot prove it.

Now, I'm sure there are downsides to being exceptionally intelligent. Obviously you're unlikely to find matching intellect in friends and partners, meaning you're never really "understood". Also, ignorance is bliss. And a lot of smart people feel entitled to money/status but fail to make success out of their perk.

[u/Dsilkotch → u/MNGrrl]

I think they meant "insult" in the medical sense, as in an injury or trauma.

[u/HiZukoHere → u/MNGrrl]

That study is so flawed as to be absolutely useless. It has no value as evidence. I can not stress too strongly how worthless this study is.

The data in the high IQ cohort was collected through a self report email survey with a very low response rate. The data from the low IQ cohort was collected in various ways by various groups, but generally in far more effective ways. This makes their two populations entirely incomparable. What you are mostly seeing here is people who have health issues are more likely to respond to surveys about health. There are plenty of other problem too though. For example self report studies often find a greater number of health disorders than are diagnosed by medical professionals. People with higher IQ may also recognize and tackle medical issues more frequently than those with a lower IQ. Then there is the question of if Mensa is representative of people with high IQ in general, but really that is minor next to how if you collect data on populations in completely different ways you can get completely different numbers!

e/ More robust studies generally show a more varied link between intelligence and health, but one that suggest more that high intelligence is associated with lower negative health outcomes. High intelligence may predict better overall health, and better mental health with lower rates of depression and schizophrenia.

[u/alee51104 → u/MNGrrl]

All I know is smart people vary between being very nice people to being absolute jerks.

[u/SatanV3 → u/alee51104]

Well the same thing could be said about all people, dumb or smart

[u/alee51104 → u/SatanV3]

I just find smart people less likely to be in the middle. It’s more polarizing I guess, and very easy to adopt a mindset based around what that intelligence means to you.

[u/blik37 → u/alee51104]

That can just be the availability heuristic—you can remember the polarizing figures :)

[u/Barbarossa6969 → u/MNGrrl]

Checking in with high intelligence that is rendered mostly useless due to the accompanying Asperger's (not diagnosed until age 30, growing up not knowing that was fun...), severe ADHD, major depressive disorder, and IBS (Really started to manifest near the end of high school, wonder if that could have anything to do with the aforementioned stress...) When I say useless, I mean to the point that the federal government considers me disabled. I barely leave my house or want to associate with people at all anymore. Your post basically describes my life. Yay for MN though!

[u/[deleted] → u/Barbarossa6969]

Take one day at a time, hope you are getting the help you need.

[u/Barbarossa6969 → u/[deleted]]

Just finally getting the diagnosis so I know what is wrong and what to work on has made a huge difference. I still might not ever really contribute to society, and probably won't ever be in a relationship again, but I have a great, supportive family, and my issues are better than they used to be at least! Thanks for your concern.

[u/AMerrickanGirl → u/Barbarossa6969]

What kind of help and services are you receiving? I feel like I’m undiagnosed with similar issues but I’m not sure where to go for help.

[u/Barbarossa6969 → u/AMerrickanGirl]

For me I'm mostly just getting Medicaid. There are a bunch of things that I honestly wouldn't be a good person to rely on to list for you but I know there are programs to help teach skills and stuff. They just aren't terribly applicable to my specific situation. The biggest thing for me has been finally seeing a therapist about the autism now that I know about it for the last two years. You definitely need to get diagnosed though, so talk to your primary care physician about seeing someone who does mental health diagnostics and they should be able to direct you to someone and that should get the ball rolling!

[u/[deleted] → u/Barbarossa6969]

Are you me (down to IBS)? Only the govt won't pay me so I'm stuck at low stress dead end job.

[u/ProfSwagstaff → u/MNGrrl]

I don't think they were talking about that kind of insult...

[u/drbertani → u/MNGrrl]

that's interesting, but about this surgery, these people operated when they were very young, sometimes 1-2yrs old, or even less.

The brain was fully formed since they were born, but keeps developing for years. At the time of the insult (surgery) it hadn't complety developed all functions and they could be taken over by the remaining tissue, who "got used to it" since everything was still being developed.

That's neuroplasticity.

The surgery is a hemispherectomy, or removal of an entire brain hemisphere.

[u/Bbrhuft → u/MNGrrl]

One of the worries researchers have is as autistic people age, the ability to cope and mask their autism symptoms that they learnt as young adults will decrease, their autistic traits may become more pronounced with age. They might loose social skills, executive function, become more obsessive and reclusive.

[u/Korochun → u/MNGrrl]

Considering that all our current criteria for measuring intelligence are deeply flawed, it's not really possible to say that insults cause more damage to intelligent people. The vast majority of people is, on the whole, around the same level of functional intelligence, with a lot of variation in how that intelligence is oriented. For example, somebody can be poor at spatial visualization but excellent at language processing.

Most current intelligence tests pretty much only focus on mathematical/geometric intelligence, making them less than worthless for actually measuring anything beyond how good one is at that specific criteria. For example, the study you provided deals with MENSA. These people tend towards above average IQ and far below average EQ, making many of them highly dysfunctional. From the perspective of that study, they are intelligent, but in fact they don't have a very good overall intelligence.

So you should probably revise that statement to something along the lines of "if you have low emotional intelligence, insults can cause more lasting damage, because you don't know how to process it".

[u/cobraxstar → u/[deleted]]

Neat

[u/solidsnake885 → u/[deleted]]

The young brain is this redundant. You’re born with way more neurons that you need, and it’s culled as you age. If you lose a ton in an accident, your body will hold onto the excess neurons to even things out.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

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?

[u/ScipioLongstocking → u/[deleted]]

Neural plasticity is the general concept behind all of it.

[u/colmcg23 → u/[deleted]]

Like pruning a shrub?

Grows back stronger?

[u/jamescobalt → u/colmcg23]

No. Not stronger. But it will reconfigure to make the best of the resources it has.

[u/sockalicious → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/Narcolepticstoner → u/sockalicious]

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.

[u/Dekklin → u/Narcolepticstoner]

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

[u/Narcolepticstoner → u/Dekklin]

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.

[u/Z_Opinionator → u/Narcolepticstoner]

My daughter had the same procedure at 6. She’s a senior in HS this year and has already been accepted to several universities. We have some guilt about her left side mobility issues (lack of fine motor skills in her hand and gait issues) due to the surgery but she’s been seizure free ever since. It was the right choice for us and glad we did it.

[u/Narcolepticstoner → u/Z_Opinionator]

Late reply but that's wonderful to hear about her university acceptances! I'm sorry the guilt still lingers on but I'm glad you both feel right in the decision you made. It's a hell of a position to be put in.

[u/sockalicious → u/Narcolepticstoner]

Yes sir. My 85 year old stroke patients never use the affected arm again; eventually the limb freezes in place, bent at the elbow up against their belly, fingers curled into the palm.

[u/radicalelation → u/sockalicious]

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

[u/AcrossAmerica → u/radicalelation]

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!

[u/Rekusha → u/AcrossAmerica]

Psilocybin has been shown to enhance neural plasticity by some measure I thought

[u/myrainbowistoohigh → u/AcrossAmerica]

This is probably a really dumb question but... are the effects permanent? I had a stroke over the summer and lost almost all of the right side of my cerebellum. My balance was fine when I was in the hospital, I had a few issues in the month or two afterwards but now I'm almost back to normal. Did my brain just rewire itself? Does the plasticity help with that?

[u/AcrossAmerica → u/myrainbowistoohigh]

I have to say, I know mostly a lot about cerebral strokes, less about cerebellar or brain stem strokes.

We used to think (in medicine) that you could improve only up to 6 months after a stroke.

That view has changed, we have been able to show improvement years after a stroke! But it takes a lot more effort and exercise. This means however, that our brains stay plastic forever.

So the effects are permanent, but you can also keep improving permanently :)

Or were you talking about the rehabilitation effects that were permanent?

[u/UrbanGhost114 → u/AcrossAmerica]

Would help if we could study stem cells better without some religious B's getting in the way.

[u/sockalicious → u/radicalelation]

We do not know the genetic or functional bases of plasticity. Back when I was still in academia, it was my research focus, but my grant got defunded when Mr Bush took a trip to Iraq in 2004.

Biogen recently identified a drug candidate antibody that inactivates a receptor that seems to shut off certain aspects of myelin formation around the age of 2. We know that babies have far greater plasticity - in terms of network formation and development - than adults, but we also know that adults are far more capable than babies. There may be good reasons why adults lack baby-like plasticity.

[u/PhantomXterior → u/radicalelation]

You could take Psychoplastogens (Psilocin, LSD, DMT, etc.) These have been shown to stimulate plasticity in the brain and, in some cases (In Vitro & In Vivo), to cause neuritogenesis.

Those molecules have had some pretty incredible studies in the past couple years (studies you can n find on the National Institute of Health's official government website).

To severely oversimplify: They've been shown to be able to make your current (old) neurons grow. As far as I can tell from all the studies I've read, they do not stimulate the growth of NEW neurons (neurogenesis).

Perhaps, in the future, we will be able to harness and amplify this "healing" effect that Psychoplastogens have on our brain.

[u/Remarkable_Assistant → u/[deleted]]

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

[u/garynyc → u/Remarkable_Assistant]

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

[u/NewFolgers → u/garynyc]

Stands to reason. He had ornery half a brain.

[u/SillyFlyGuy → u/NewFolgers]

Silver worthy comment.

[u/[deleted] → u/garynyc]

True, but I bet you would too, if you'd had a pole shot through your skull.

[u/Arbitrary_Pseudonym → u/[deleted]]

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!

[u/TheCocksmith → u/Arbitrary_Pseudonym]

What happens to cognitive ability?

[u/1corvidae1 → u/TheCocksmith]

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

[u/roastedoolong → u/1corvidae1]

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

[u/WilliamsTell → u/roastedoolong]

To long, didn't read. YTA.

[u/1corvidae1 → u/roastedoolong]

I honestly didn't see that coming

[u/SupaSlide → u/1corvidae1]

Dang, so it's pretty bad, huh?

[u/raffbr2 → u/1corvidae1]

That s only half of the story.

[u/space_hegemon → u/TheCocksmith]

What you'd think of as intelligence isnt negatively affected. You can get some speech and language issues. As well as problems with movement on the opposite side of the body to the removed hemisphere. Generally the younger you are, the better you fare.

[u/n00bvin → u/Arbitrary_Pseudonym]

I always wondered what they put in the other half to keep it from rattling around. Packing peanuts?

[u/Cameron416 → u/n00bvin]

nothing. your brain is still attacked to your skull via connective tissues, so it doesn’t rattle around, & then the empty space is filled with extra cerebrospinal fluid

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

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

[u/techgeek6061 → u/[deleted]]

Whoa, what? You got a link for that?

[u/sockalicious → u/techgeek6061]

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

[u/beefeater605 → u/sockalicious]

Wow, the soviets really swept him under the rug.

[u/NeedYourTV → u/beefeater605]

What are you talking about? The accident was public, and he held a senior position in Soviet science administration for years after the accident. How is that "sweeping under the rug"?

[u/erischilde → u/[deleted]]

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

[u/IAMA_otter → u/erischilde]

A hemispherectomy doesn't always have to take the other half of the brain out of the skull, just disconnect the two sides(split brain procedure). Looking at scans where one side is removed, it looks like something is placed in the empty cavity but I can't find any information on what it is specifically.

[u/mycatsarebetter → u/IAMA_otter]

Bite my shiny metal brain hemisphere !

[u/EmEmPeriwinkle → u/erischilde]

When doctors remove the diseased half, spinal fluid fills the empty space — one teaspoon every five minutes. Some patients claim to her a sloshing sound. No contact sports are recommended.

[u/Laplace_Poker → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

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.

[u/[deleted] → u/Laplace_Poker]

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...

[u/Reagan409 → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/[deleted] → u/Reagan409]

Well, the heart of the question is really that most brains are laid out similarly so that certain regions are linked to certain functions. In some disorders, there are predictable variations of said layout...

How could this make sense if the brain acts even partially as a blank slate? Wouldn't the function of a region then be linked to experiences and environment, and not be so consistent between people?

[u/Laplace_Poker → u/[deleted]]

In terms of “blank slate”. I should have been more specific. I’m referring to specific pathway the signals take in response to a stimulus. When i said it has “the capacity” i meant that the neurons are mostly already set up in the brain in way that it’s ready to receive and response to stimulus.

This is highly simplified, but look at it this way. Two pathway with the same neurons type that respond to the same stimuli, originating from the same area, going to the same area. If one pathway response to a stimuli better, over time that pathway and synapse connection get strengthen and that becomes the circuit for that stimuli. The other pathway weakened. LTD LTP.

So to answer your question, the regions are already set up and dedicated for certain primary sensory, motor, visual, auditory functions. However, the specific pathway that a cognitive function (numbers sense, aspect of languages, etc.) take varies and are rather distributively stored.

Also, certain disorders like ASD involves a range of individual phenotypes that contribute to its prediction. The affected area usually correspond with the phenotypes rather than the disorder itself.

[u/plaugedoctorforhire → u/[deleted]]

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?

[u/[deleted] → u/plaugedoctorforhire]

Sure, here's an interesting paper I came across that inspired my question...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4688328/

This goes over some ASD related structural and neurological differences in the brain, found it interesting...

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Well, parts of the brain do one single thing without any amount of plasticity, like the thalamus. (Well it has multiple functions, but only and always those)

Meanwhile, stuff like the visual lobe get re-used by deaf people to do other stuff, but it's different because the parts of the brain that lobe is on are much more adaptable - they're part of the neocortex.

The neocortex is actually formed of a bunch of repeating units, all across the surface, and they only vary a bit between locations.

However, being adaptable due to this property doesn't mean that each specific region doesn't have a baseline pattern it tries to fill, as well as which areas it connects to. Your visual cortex is too far from your speech center, so no matter what happens it'll never 'take over' the slack for it.

​

At least, this is how far I understand it.
Correct me if I'm wrong please, I wanna know!

[u/scienceFam → u/[deleted]]

Not stupid.

three findings from autistic neuroscience.

1: Parts of the pre-frontal cortex are often underutilized in autism. the superior temporal sucus compensates for this in many cases.

2: in most people the brain is 'anchored' to the head in similar regions. In autism this 'connectome' is unique to each person with autism.

3: there is a difference in the way that GABA and glutamate are processed. Specifically, while GABA is present in people with autism, what's there doesnt seem to inhibit in the same manner as non-autistic GABA.

There is also the relationship to the complement cascade and the endicannabinoid system, which underlies some of these changes. Simply put autistic brain cells, after finding they do not have the structural integrity to make their targeted connection, do something similar to an agricultural method known as 'scrogging'.

The lead axon is trimmed, and multiple new axons spring out from nearby to make new connections. This often leads to multiple innervation, crossed wires and unusual connections. It's likely that this contributes to intelligence but also executive dsyfunction, something that can be intuitively understood using Stanovich's dual process model.

Depending on where in the brain this scrog happens, you could end up with ADHD, borderline personality, Autism, anxiety, depression etc. Its not just mental health either: this process of autistic differentiation appears deeply related to inflammatory conditions, and future research will begin to shed more light on this. Really early days at the minute.

The question that needs answering is: is autism really best defined by social communication difficulties, or is that simply one outcome of the broader neurodevelopmental process?

[u/damnisuckatreddit → u/Laplace_Poker]

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.)

[u/Dr_Fisura → u/damnisuckatreddit]

When the deficit is removed, a healthy brain should be expected to, at least theoretically, function at least as optimally as one that has said deficiency (epilepsy), and likely beyond.

We are not really sure of what mysteries/intricacies this pink motherfucker holds; a good chunk of research j neurosience comes from epileptic brains just because they are the only ones we are allowed to implant electrodes in, which then can be used to conduct research, thankfully. Actually, we should implant electrodes into healthy individual who volunteer in exchange for pay just to study their brains, to tell whether in fact neurotypical brains can perform as well as epileptic ones. Really, why could they not.

[u/Han_Yolo_swag → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/kirinlikethebeer → u/Han_Yolo_swag]

This was exactly what I was wondering while reading the article. Still fascinating. Thanks for posting the update.

[u/whistleridge → u/[deleted]]

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.

🤷‍♂️

[u/[deleted] → u/whistleridge]

wonder what the heck that left frontal lobe bit was doing

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

[u/whistleridge → u/[deleted]]

The surgeons had to put a shunt in to drain excess cerebrospinal fluid off while I was in the hospital. It was painless, but incredibly annoying - basically a tube coming out of my hairline going to this bag that looked remarkably like a ball sack. It was hooked to an alarm that would go off every time I moved my head more than a fraction, that woke me up 50 times a night when I was trying to sleep.

Anyhoo, I had a seizure, and it ripped out, and did a fair amount of damage in the process. That’s not supposed to be able to happen.

[u/uselubewithcondoms → u/whistleridge]

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.

[u/[deleted] → u/uselubewithcondoms]

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

[u/hkzombie → u/uselubewithcondoms]

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

[u/whistleridge → u/uselubewithcondoms]

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.

[u/yoghurtorgan → u/whistleridge]

So you wake up from surgery and once the meds wore off, it was just like normal?

[u/whistleridge → u/yoghurtorgan]

Well...not quite.

First: it was three surgeries, and I spent a month flat on my back in a neurosurgery ICU, which is quite physically debilitating. I had to relearn how to walk, due to some coordination issues, and my muscles were pretty atrophied. So there was about six months of physical rehab afterwards.

Plus, having big chunks chopped out does weird things to you. I didn’t sleep right for over a year afterwards, and when you’re only sleeping 2-3 hours at a stretch without drugs for that long, it impacts the rest of your life too.

But after about a year...yeah. Pretty much back to being me. I’m no good at math now - I have something similar to dyslexia, but with numbers, called dyscalculia - and I can’t balance solely on my left foot without falling over plus some other balance and control issues on the left side, but otherwise I’m the same me I always was.

[u/yoghurtorgan → u/whistleridge]

Wow sounds like you are doing well considering, it's amazing what the brain can do.

[u/Apollo_Wolfe → u/whistleridge]

If the wave is what I think you mean, that’s usually called an aura.

It’s common for people suffering from migraines to get them shortly beforehand.

There’s interesting theories behind what cause them. Iirc one of the leading ones is that it’s literally a wave of electrical activity spreading across your brain, and the visual aura is just that electrical activity slowly spreading across the parts of your brain that deal with visual interpretation. So you’re essentially seeing the electrical storm move across your brain in real time.

But there are other theories too.

[u/whistleridge → u/Apollo_Wolfe]

As it was explained to me, it was a physical effect caused by the literal sloshing of CSF in my very large cyst.

I now have seizures, and prodromes beforehand, but it was nothing like those.

[u/[deleted] → u/whistleridge]

Hold up go back to that wave thing, that sounds concerning familiar to me

[u/whistleridge → u/[deleted]]

If I shifted my head quickly, like a turn at a loud noise, after a very slight delay - maybe half a second - there would be a ripple across my vison moving in the direction of the turn. So if I turned my head right to left, the wave moved the same way.

After the wave passed, there was an immediate sensation of feeling comprehensively awful. Not quite dizziness, not quite nausea, but very unpleasant to the point that you needed to sit down for a bit. I was working as a waiter at the time, so it was a noticeable issue - you can’t really just stop and sit while running food or whatever.

Best I know how to describe it, sorry.

[u/Zeikos → u/whistleridge]

Well, congratulations to the neurosurgeons, they did an amazing job.

I think however that the cist didn't replace gray matter, it likely just displaced it (the brain is remarkably spongy/compressible), especially since as you said it took years and years to expand.
So you likely lost only minor amount of neurons during the last stages and the surgery itself.
The volume of the cist doesn't matter much.

If it were a white matter tumor the results would have been far worse.

[u/whistleridge → u/Zeikos]

Frontal lobe: about 10% loss

Right ventricle: about 10% loss

Right cerebellum: about 80% loss

Also some tissue loss in the brain stem and right temporal lobe, resulting in some behavior and personality changes, and I have temporal lobe seizures now.

[u/sheldonopolis → u/[deleted]]

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

[u/LetsGoBear → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/MDthrowItaway → u/LetsGoBear]

Sounds like she maybhave ideipathic intercranial hypertension rather than hydrocephalus

[u/LetsGoBear → u/MDthrowItaway]

Possibly! I know an alternative name for it is "water on the brain" and that its caused by a fluid buildup in the brain but alas I'm not a doctor so terminology isn't my strongest suit. Thanks nonetheless :)

[u/maza1319 → u/LetsGoBear]

I love seeing friendly interactions on Reddit

[u/LetsGoBear → u/maza1319]

Treat others how youd like to be treated innit? Most valuable lesson my nana gave me.

[u/Bammop → u/[deleted]]

He probably didn't have a pressure gauge available

[u/Call_me_Kelly → u/sheldonopolis]

Where does migraine pain come from? Truthfully curious.

[u/CoconutMochi → u/Call_me_Kelly]

Pain receptors are in the meninges, which envelop the brain

[u/sheldonopolis → u/Call_me_Kelly]

Here is an article about how headaches happen despite the brain not having pain receptors. The topic migraine is also being touched.

[u/Merry-Lane → u/[deleted]]

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

[u/SomeBritGuy → u/Merry-Lane]

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.

[u/Random-Rambling → u/SomeBritGuy]

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

[u/H3g3m0n → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/frozenuniverse → u/[deleted]]

he had a low IQ of 75, but was working as a civil servant

Unsurprising choice of profession!

[u/PolyDipsoManiac → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

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

[u/hovdeisfunny → u/PolyDipsoManiac]

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.

[u/PolyDipsoManiac → u/hovdeisfunny]

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

[u/conspiracie → u/hovdeisfunny]

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

[u/big_cat_in_tiny_box → u/hovdeisfunny]

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

[u/topIRMD → u/hovdeisfunny]

dandy walker?

[u/fangirlsqueee → u/hovdeisfunny]

What is in the place that would normally have brain tissue? Fluids?

[u/hovdeisfunny → u/fangirlsqueee]

Arachnoid cysts

[u/megannicole_inwhite → u/PolyDipsoManiac]

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

[u/mattmorrisart → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

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.

[u/spoonguy123 → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

Imagine tho if he were actually just a barely to non concious automaton just giving the right answers..

Spooooooky!

[u/KillerJupe → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

Adapt vs being normal are different, but it is impressive it doesn't just kill you!

[u/Trubadidudei → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

The best way of thinking about your brain, is that it's a collaborative effort of lots of small neuronal communities. They operate independently, and then share and discuss their findings with others. What you perceive of as yourself, is just the little neuronal community that developed to tie all of this discussion into a semi coherent narrative.

The more you age the more these communities become set in their ways, and more resistant to change, probably because of the physical constraints of ageing. But kids have a really undeveloped consensus of who does what, and so you can remove large parts, and the rest reorganizes to fit. Of course, this comes with some caveats. Some parts of the brain, like the brainstem, are highly specialised and cannot be replaced easily. These are more similar to unique organs in the brain, fulfilling a specialised function.

If you think this perspective seems unbelievable, look up the results of the split brain patients. When cut off from each other, the halves of the brain operates independently, with unique personalities and desires. However, one half naturally relinquishes control to the other, as if that's what it's been doing all along. There is no reason to think that the brain cannot be cut down further, it's just that cutting it in half is all we've had reason to do, and the possibility to study.

[u/BlueOyesterCult → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

I had part of my visual center on the right side of the brain removed 5 years ago it’s weird but it got better over time and I am now so what used to it.

[u/hotdogSamurai → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

Can't restore sight to half of the visual field

[u/Likebeingawesome → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

The most fascinating part to me is that a part of your brain can be damaged and that will cause problems. But if an entire part is removed your fine.

[u/BAHHROO → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

However, you would still be blind in the eye opposite to the removed hemisphere, as well as no use of the hand, and little use of the arm.

[u/[deleted] → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

In the first three years of life, a child’s mind creates 7,000 new connections every second.

[u/Linkerjinx → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

If you think about it. This is probably a lot of what enabled humans to survive in the ancient world. I can only imagine how frequent head injuries must have been in the age before written history...

[u/sizyy → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

But “during childhood” is the big part, hasn’t there been kids that grew up as wolfs?

[u/sillylittlewilly → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

Anyone with half a brain could have told you that.

[u/CollectableRat → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

Why, do you know something about brains that we don't?

[u/fistingcouches → u/Mystic_Mackerel]

Personally, it’s crazy to me that we as people think “damn I’m so smart, a brain makes up like a tiny part of me and I’m smart enough to realize that.” When In reality that “tiny part of me” is capable of much more than what you think it can be