Brain Adaptability

Do you remember the Steve Martin movie The Man with Two Brains? Steve Martin plays a neurosurgeon that pioneers a new cranial screw top type of brain surgery in a pretty funny movie. I thought it was called The Man with No Brain until I later Googled it. This brings me to an article I read recently about a 24 year old woman that was admitted to a Chinese hospital complaining of dizziness and nausea. As for her prior history, she told the doctors that she’d had problems walking steadily all her life and in fact hadn't walked till age 7, nor spoke intelligibly until age 6. Now at the age of 24 a CAT scan showed that this woman was missing a pretty important part of her brain, her cerebellum. This is not the entire brain but it is the part that contains 50% of the brains neurons and is known to control voluntary movement, balance, and our ability to learn specific motor actions including speaking. This woman joins a group of only nine people who are known to have actually lived without a cerebellum and is an example of the amazing plasticity of the human brain and how it is able to compensate for a missing piece. Future brain scans in this woman’s case will give doctors more insight into just that.