Doctors have discovered that somehow, a
woman living in China has reached the age of 24
while missing a large part of her brain. They say
this is evidence of how incredibly adaptable our
brains can be.
Images: Left: Feng Yu et al. Right: decade3d/
Shutterstock
When a woman checked herself into the PLA
General Hospital in China's Shandong Province,
she reported symptoms of dizziness and nausea.
She’d had a shaky walk for most of her life, and
unlike most people, who learn to walk when
they’re very young infants, she was only able to
master this skill at seven years old. She was
also only able to speak properly from the age of
six.
According to Helen Thomson at New Scientist ,
once the doctors performed a CAT scan - which
combines information from several X-rays to
produce a comprehensive image of structures
inside the brain - the source problem was
immediately made clear. The woman’s entire
cerebellum was missing, and in its place was
nothing but cerebrospinal fluid , which is a
special substance that protects the brain from
damaging knocks and disease.
The cerebellum makes up 10 percent of the
brain’s total volume, but contains 50 percent of
its neurons. It sits beneath the brain’s two
hemispheres, and is made up of a unique
combination of small and compact tissue folds.
It plays a crucial role in motor control and
speech, and there’s evidence to suggest that it’s
involved in cognitive functions such as attention
and language, and perhaps even in mitigating
feelings of fear and pleasure.
While this woman is not the first person born
without a cerebellum, she is just one of nine
people known to have survived to adulthood
without it. "A detailed description of how the
disorder affects a living adult is almost non-
existent, say doctors from the Chinese hospital,
because most people with the condition die at a
young age and the problem is only discovered on
autopsy,” says Thomson at New Scientist .
The fact that the woman has so far displayed
only relatively minor reactions to the missing
part of her brain suggests how ‘plastic’ and
adaptable this organ is, and perhaps her brain’s
cortex has been filling in the gaps in order for her
to function.
"These rare cases are interesting to understand
how the brain circuitry works and compensates
for missing parts," Mario Manto, an expert in
cerebellar disorders at the Free University of
Brussels in Belgium, told New Scientist .
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