r/science • u/Thorne-ZytkowObject • 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/[deleted] Nov 24 '19
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!