Brain Day

In honor of devoting most of my day to neuro, here is a way interesting bio from a wiki search I did today.

Exceptional case

One interesting case involving a person with past hydrocephalus was a 44-year old French man, whose brain had been reduced to little more than a thin sheet of actual brain tissue, due to the buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in his head. The man, who had had a shunt inserted into his head to drain away fluid (which was removed when he was 14), went to a hospital after he had been experiencing mild weakness in his left leg.

DWS: All of the black in the middle is cerebrospinal fluid and the brain matter is the rim of white along the outside of the skull. This is a screen shot from aFox News report.

In July 2007, Fox News quoted Dr. Lionel Feuillet of Hôpital de la Timone inMarseille as saying: "The images were most unusual... the brain was virtually absent."^[10] When doctors learned of the man's medical history, they performed a computed tomography (CT) scan and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, and were astonished to see "massive enlargement" of the lateral ventricles in the skull. Intelligence tests showed the man had an IQ of 75, below the average score of 100. This would be considered "borderline intellectual functioning"- which is to say not quite mental retardation.

Remarkably, the man was a married father of two children, and worked as a civil servant, leading an at least superficially normal life, despite having enlarged ventricles with a decreased volume of brain tissue. "What I find amazing to this day is how the brain can deal with something which you think should not be compatible with life," commented Dr. Max Muenke, a pediatric brain defect specialist at the National Human Genome Research Institute. "If something happens very slowly over quite some time, maybe over decades, the different parts of the brain take up functions that would normally be done by the part that is pushed to the side."^[11][12]

I love that site, and speaking of loving web sites I have started a new list of links with some of my favorites or most helpful to date. If you have anything that I should add to my list please let me know....

And since today is self-declared brain day, here is an interesting theory on play. I obviously went to the wrong pre-school. Check out this article in the New York Times Magazine: Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?


Speaking of self-control I think its time I return to my studies. I think I've developed ADHD since starting medical school but more on that later... Time to pre-read for 2 hours of immuno tomorrow.