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Rat had 'no brain' and somehow lived a normal life
- sneak 7y agoSee also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
- bobmaxup 7y agoPhineas Gage did not live a normal life.
- catalogia 7y agoWell, no. But maybe he could have. He died young from a seizure that I'm guessing had something to do with his injury, and he famously became a complete asshole after his injury. But that said, wikipedia suggests that he began recovering his social skills in the years after his injury. Perhaps if he hadn't died young, he could have returned to some sort of normalcy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage#Social_recovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage#Social_recovery
- unishark 7y agowell I think the standard for normal here is pretty low. How honest was this rat?
- firethief 7y agoFrom this article it's not clear if the rat has many fewer neurons than normal, or small neurons compressed together. Given its high level of function, I'd be more surprised by the former.
- anonytrary 7y ago> It was only after they traced chemicals in the brain that they were able to verify that, indeed, the hippocampus was that squished, displaced object pushed toward the back of the brain. Main takeaway (misleading title) is that this rat had a brain, but a region of fluid developed and pushed the brain towards the edges of the cranial cavity. The rat was still able to do most of the other basic tasks as the other rats, but may have suffered from anxiety. And that's the extent of this article. I don't think we know how higher order functions were affected. I would guess that these (like what humans have) are not necessary to sustain life. A species can exist indefinitely as long as they can feed and reproduce faster than they die. These things are easy to do without higher order functions if food and reproductive mates are readily available. I wouldn't be surprised if a lab rat without 99% of their brain didn't change much or could still complete basic tasks. I would be surprised if a human without 99% of their brain could function normally in society today, which requires relatively heavy higher order brain function.
- saurik 7y agoHuh. I had a memory of reading about a human who had the same issue you quoted (I honestly have not clicked through to the article about the rat) and found an article about it with images I am finding extremely familiar. > A man with an unusually tiny brain manages to live an entirely normal life despite his condition, which was caused by a fluid build-up in his skull. > Scans of the 44-year-old man’s brain showed that a huge fluid-filled chamber called a ventricle took up most of the room in his skull, leaving little more than a thin sheet of actual brain tissue (see image of the patient’s brain, above left). https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301-man-with-tiny-brain-shocks-doctors/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301-man-with-tiny-b...
- anonytrary 7y agoWell, as promised, color me surprised. Either the brain is extremely resilient to compression, or being a human is easier than I thought...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jarfil 7y agoThe important part is the cortex, so in this case he might have lost some white matter connectivity but kept most of the gray matter structures. IQ of 75, though.
- FeepingCreature 7y agoBut see also /u/gwern's excellent writeup on these dramatic images: https://www.gwern.net/Hydrocephalus https://www.gwern.net/Hydrocephalus
- quickthrower2 7y agoInteresting piece thanks. The tl;dr is we probably need all the neurons inside our brains and evolution didn’t miss a trick to make us run on mini brains.
- greendude29 7y agoThe title is very click-baity. It's another demonstration of the plasticity of the brain, which the author has called 'no brain'
- Ardren 7y agoPaper here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-53042-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-53042-3
- mkl 7y agoThings like this have happened in people too. E.g. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301-man-with-tiny-brain-shocks-doctors/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301-man-with-tiny-b... and https://www.irishtimes.com/news/remarkable-story-of-maths-genius-who-had-almost-no-brain-1.1026845 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/remarkable-story-of-maths-ge... Gwern has a good summary, including criticisms: https://www.gwern.net/Hydrocephalus https://www.gwern.net/Hydrocephalus
- ptha 7y agoSimilarly the story of Noah Wall, The parents of a boy born with only 2 percent of his brain have spoken out about their son's "extraordinary" development. Shelly and his father Rob Wall spoke of how their six-year-old son has since gained function in 80 percent of his brain. [1] [1] https://www.newsweek.com/miracle-boy-born-no-brain-grows-back-1338637 https://www.newsweek.com/miracle-boy-born-no-brain-grows-bac...
- a9h74j 7y agoI remember seeing a journal article decades ago: Is the Brain Necessary? I don't remember any other details, only that due to some condition, only a thin shell of active matter remained.
- _Microft 7y agoHere is a case of a woman missing her cerebellum who also showed less effects than expected: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329861-900-woman-of-24-found-to-have-no-cerebellum-in-her-brain/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329861-900-woman-of...
- zaphirplane 7y agoI read that as redHat and re-read the heading a couple of times thinking what ! New NY resolution spend less time reading about tech
- psnosignaluk 7y agoI somehow read that initially as RedHat as well. Curious as to how my habit of skim reading and incorrectly logging information has filled by brain with bitrot over the years.
- jaclaz 7y agoSimilar (but different), Mike, the headless chicken: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken
- andai 7y ago> It was determined that the axe had missed the jugular vein[7] and a clot had prevented Mike from bleeding to death. Although most of his head was severed, most of his brain stem and one ear were left on his body. Since basic functions (breathing, heart rate, etc.) as well as most of a chicken's reflex actions are controlled by the brain stem, Mike was able to remain quite healthy.
- mLuby 7y ago"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- blight 7y agohttps://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=6116 https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=6116 same case but in humans, he had a "normal" life.
- dang 7y agoDiscussed last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20075085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20075085 and in 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10810454 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10810454
- walleeee 7y agoLove seeing Watts in the wild. That site is a gold mine for interesting bits of biology (and more).
- JamesBarney 7y agohttps://www.gwern.net/Hydrocephalus https://www.gwern.net/Hydrocephalus Gwerns very detailed write up on the conditoon
- The_mboga_real 7y agoLook at that.. Both author and research team had 'no brain' and somehow are living normal lives
- hkt 7y agoSee also, most layers of middle management.
- winrid 7y agoAs an ex-manager, I laughed.
- cambalache 7y agoHN is nice, but it is too humorless, people take themselves way too seriously here. Banter and humor are great social lubricants.I miss that coming from Slashdot. So thanks.
- RankingMember 7y agoI agree, but I think there's a fear that people will take it too far and we'll end up in Reddit hell with endless chains of worn out puns and unfunny copy/pasted jokes.
- antisthenes 7y agoI was expecting a lawyer joke, myself. Thanks for the chuckle.
- avip 7y agoRed-Hat Developers have no Train and Somehow Live a Normal Life
- fctorial 7y agoFor a rat, the spinal cord could be just as big, or bigger than the brain in mass. It's possible that the spinal cord does majority of processing for rats, like cockroaches.
- interfixus 7y agoI wasn't really aware of cockroaches possessing spinal cords. Flippancy aside, rats are sophisticated mammals with basically the same set of higher order functions as ourselves, although of course in different quantities.
- nabla9 7y agoHumans with the same condition and most of their brain 'gone' can also live normal life: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61127-1/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- ReptileMan 7y ago>I would be surprised if a human without 99% of their brain could function normally in society today, which requires relatively heavy higher order brain function. We can always send them to the European Parliament ... no one will notice.
- CPLX 7y agoIndeed. In fact many find considerable success in American politics.
- konstmonst 7y agoAm I the only one who red "Red Hat had 'No Brain' and Somehow Lived a Normal Life"?
- kalium_xyz 7y agoMore and more do I get convinced one of the primary functions of the brain is filling up space in the skull.
- m3kw9 7y agoIt says it may have “heightened anxiety”. It probably knows his own brain was limited in some sort of abilities, so it subconsciously limited risk taking
- dang 7y agoUrl changed from https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/this-rat-had-no-brain-and-it-somehow-lived-a-normal-life-329774 https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/this-ra..., which points to this.