A Modern pillow slip study from Pittsburgh highlights the resiliency of the human brain . It details a boy who , despite losing one - third of the right cerebral hemisphere of his encephalon when he was six , is now a mostly ordinary 10 - year - honest-to-god . Though he ca n’t see past the left side of his face , his brainiac has compensate for the going in some room by form fresh nervous connections , permit him to recognise faces and object as easily as anyone else .
The boy , referred to as U.D. in the paperpublishedTuesday in Cell Reports , start having severe seizure at the eld of four . The raptus were because of a behind - farm psyche tumour see in the occipital and secular lobe of his right hemisphere . Eventually , after drug and other treatments did picayune to alleviate his symptom , the boy ’s crime syndicate opted for a ultra option : Just before turn seven , the boy had his entire occipital and much of the worldly lobe take out , account for one - third of the right hemisphere .
The drastic surgical process was a achiever . The boy ’s seizure go off , as did the neoplasm . But there was no telling how he would get on after losing these crucial parts of the genius . The occipital lobe acts as a command eye for the visual info we take in from our eye , letting us comprehend vision and help us settle what those shapes and colour mean to us . The temporal lobe , among other things , also takes in and march visual and auditive info from the out-of-door man .
Because the boy had pick up his care at the Children ’s Hospital in Pittsburgh , he and his family agreed to participate in a project go by Marlene Behrmann , a cognitive neuroscientist at Carnegie Mellon University . Behrmann and her team have long been interested in interpret how the head reserve us to see the humanity , and how that process can be touch on . Their task has been meticulously studying patient like U.D.—via regular brain CAT scan and visual tests — to chance out what on the dot encounter to the brain after parting of it involve in vision are damaged or removed .
The brain is already known to sometimes reorganise itself when damaged , forming new connections between neurons in other areas to pay for the ones that were lost . But research into the learning ability ’s plasicity , as it ’s called , has mostly been limited to how it affects our computer storage or learnedness ability , according to Behrmann .
“ There is no other longitudinal study like this that has given these sort of unprecedented insights into how the brain crop , ” Berhmann told Gizmodo .
U.D. ’s brain was n’t capable to replace the depleted - level functions of the correct hemisphere ’s visual processing , intend he ca n’t visually comprehend the remaining - handwriting side of the world . But his brain ’s left hemisphere did take over higher order functions typically found in the ripe hemisphere .
“ His visual doings is excellent , absolutely normal , ” Behrmann allege . “ Even though he only has one visual organisation , it ’s been reconfigured to do the work of both hemispheres . ”
Much like everyone else does with their unsighted smirch , U.D. cover for his left - side sightlessness by moving his eyes or head around , with niggling consciousness of what he ’s miss . And the deadening has n’t impacted his development and development : He has no signboard of cognitive or other wellness problems .
“ He is awesome . He ’s as sassy as anyone . He ’s thoughtful , singular . His kinsfolk has been incredibly cooperative with our project , ” Behrmann order .
There are still wads of interrogation about the limits of mentality plasticity in imagination , questions that Behrmann hopes her project ’s eventual finding can help answer . The head of child sr. than U.D. might not be able-bodied to reorganize as efficaciously as his did , while new children might do even do well , letting them see more of the domain . Other factor , like a child ’s cognitive use before surgery or the accurate cause of their seizure , might also run a role in the prognosis .
The type of operating theatre U.D. underwent to treat his epilepsy , while radical , is often successful , eliminating seizures 60 to 70 pct of the time . But it ’s rarely carried out , even as a last haunt . Behrmann says her team ’s research could possibly relieve some of that hesitancy , by grant doctors and family line to well call how their children will respond .
“ category often tell us that they were very hesitating to have this subprogram do , which is whole understandable . I think of , if someone comes and suppose they ’re going to cut out my shaver ’s brain , that ’d be terrifying , ” she say . “ But many of the kids do really well . And many of the parents say they wish well they had let their kid to go through surgery earlier . ”
Behrmann and her team be after to cover survey the advance of those like U.D. , though she in person has no worries about his future .
“ I have bang-up hope that this kid is going to do wonderful thing in the cosmos , ” she said . “ And the goal is for all of these kids to be able-bodied to do that . ”
[ Cell study ]
Science
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