Man With Tiny Brain Shocks Doctors

New Scientist ^ | 7-20-2007 | Lancet

[blam]

Man with tiny brain shocks doctors

12:17 20 July 2007
NewScientist.com news service
New Scientist and Reuters

The large black space shows the fluid that replaced much of the patient’s brain (left). For comparison, the images (right) show a typical brain without any abnormalities (Images: Feuillet et al./The Lancet)

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.

“It is hard for me [to say] exactly the percentage of reduction of the brain, since we did not use software to measure its volume. But visually, it is more than a 50% to 75% reduction,” says Lionel Feuillet, a neurologist at the Mediterranean University in Marseille, France.

Feuillet and his colleagues describe the case of this patient in The Lancet. He is a married father of two children, and works as a civil servant.

Not retarded

The man went to a hospital after he had mild weakness in his left leg. When Feuillet's staff took his medical history, they learned that, as an infant, he had had a shunt inserted into his head to drain away hydrocephalus – water on the brain.

The shunt was removed when he was 14. But the researchers decided to check the condition of his brain using computed tomography (CT) scanning technology and another type of scan called magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). They were astonished to see "massive enlargement" of the lateral ventricles – usually tiny chambers that hold the cerebrospinal fluid that cushions the brain.

[blam]

"75 is a very low IQ."

I believe it is 75 and below that in the US is considered mentally-retarded.

[Gritty]

[The Sons of Liberty]

I read that he was a Civil Service employee - perfect match for someone with a microscopic brain.

[Continental Soldier]

LOL

[Continental Soldier]

“...and works as a civil servent.”

What more needs be said? :)

[bjs1779]

I read that he was a Civil Service employee - perfect match for someone with a microscopic brain.

Are you saying that you are better than this person?

[B-Chan]

Yep, the human mind is nothin’ but software runnin’ on a computer called the brain...

...riiiight...

[srmorton]

I have been teaching anatomy for over 20 years and the pictures look like they are from the same area to me. They are transverse and saggital sections of the lateral ventricles of the brain which are found within the cerebral hemispheres. Although the ventricles are normally fairly small (as shown in the normal brain scan), they are filled with cerebrospinal fluid. Terri Schiavo definitely appears to have had less fluid and more intact brain tissue than this man does.

[Sun]

Thanks for the ping, and this is fascinating.

[Sun]

“He better not travel to Florida. He might end up executed by state-ordered starvation/dehydration...”

You said it!

[Sun]

“He better not travel to Florida. He might end up executed by state-ordered starvation/dehydration...”

You said it!

[Westlander]

Hydrocephalus is not the lone deciding factor for ascertaining brain viability. Image below is an example. Note no enlarged ventricles, although they have fresh blood shown on this one slice. Entrance wound right occiput, bone and metal fragments thruout both lobes, exit wound thru left frontal bone. (images are interpeted as if the patient is facing you) This type of penetrating wound are usually assigned to second year neurosurgery residents for 'practice' in the O.R. Survivability is zero. Yet, as shown, there is no hydrocephalus. It takes a team--neurosurgery, neurology, diagnostic radiology, to perform a battery of exams to find a diagnosis and impending outcome for the patient.

[T'wit]

Freeper Polybius discusses the phony comparison with Terri's CT scan

[Westlander]

Totally different areas.

Read post #178.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1840972/posts?page=199#178

‘Teaching anatomy’ and ‘pictures’ are a world away as opposed to actual experience.

[GingisK]

Is this guy holding high office? It sure is in keeping with that territory.

[srmorton]

Your reply was a little bit insulting! I do not claim to be a radiologist or a neurosurgeon, but IMO the best way to learn anything is to teach it! Polybius’s post was written on 7/3/07 and has nothing to do with the post about the man in this article. I know that the normal area being compared with Terri’s brain is not the same. The picture from the man in the story’s brain on the upper left and the picture from Terri’s brain on the lower right DO appear to be transverse sections through the lateral ventricles. They compare with the picture of the elderly woman’s brain that was shown in Polybius’s post.

[Ghengis]

He better not travel to Florida. He might end up executed by state-ordered starvation/dehydration...

[cookcounty]

As a guy with a mere 6 3/4" noggin, I've personal reasons for disliking the popular evolutionary theories relating brain size to intelligence. According to theory, human women have great difficulty in child-birth (and would be extremely vulnerable "in the wild") because intelligence is dependent on cranial cubic cm. Now this story makes me wonder if that is so.

You should have seen me peering out from the one-size-fits-all pot in the Army. I looked like a 12-year-old and felt like I had Grandma's stew kettle bouncing around up there.

[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[8mmMauser]

Pinged from Terri Dailies

8mm