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This "virtually no brain" business is highly misleading, and the implication that the brain is not the seat of the mind or intelligence is simply unscientific.
by Udo 13y ago
This "virtually no brain" business is highly misleading, and the implication that the brain is not the seat of the mind or intelligence is simply unscientific.
A lot of hydrocephalus patients have brainmatter displaced in the center, with the actual cortex often somewhat intact lining the cranium. It's true that the brain is amazingly redundant and especially damage sustained at a young age can often be fully compensated. But let's not jump into pseudo science. You can't take this "no brain" thing literally.
- ComputerGuru 13y agoNo, of course not. However, if the basic observations were truthfully reported, a brain one tenth the mass of a normal brain still able to somehow function (in some individuals) as well as a brain ten times it's weight is certainly food for thought. The title of that article is of course tabloid trash. But I think there is something as of yet unexplained of interest in the mentioned subjects and their physiological situations.
- Udo 13y agoTrue, but it bears repeating that the surface of the brain is where the magic happens, and that's only casually related to mass. Most of the mass in the center is for support structures and a place to thread interconnect fibres through. All that stuff still has to happen for a hydrocephalus patient to function, but there's a lot more mass than technically needed. Intelligence decrease in hydrocephalus comes from the tissue trauma associated with it, not necessarily the decrease in overall mass itself. Unexplained might be a bit of an overstatement, but there is certainly a lot to be learned from examining a little closer how the brain deals with damage.
- ComputerGuru 13y agoThank you. That clarified things.
- trentmb 13y agoIt doesn't matter how much grey matter you have if those neurons aren't connected in any meaningful way.