http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301#.UyYnLs7LLyV

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 (see image, right).

“It is hard for me 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.

Dropbear said:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301#.UyYnLs7LLyV

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 (see image, right).

“It is hard for me 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.

On average, a civil servant only needs to know how to get to work and back.

I think I know this man.

I think I have met him on many occasions.

:-(

roughbarked said:

On average, a civil servant only needs to know how to get to work and back.

It’s often the case that the rest of us are better off that way.

Rule 303 said:

roughbarked said:

On average, a civil servant only needs to know how to get to work and back.

It’s often the case that the rest of us are better off that way.

A fair point, I can concede.

>
>

Though my FiL was often lambasted for his decisions about the love of his life apart from his wife which happened to be the forests under his control, his funeral spread out well onto the streets from the church he would never have entered while alive.

What job he does is irrelevant, the fact that he is functioning normally with such a small brain capacity is very interesting, it means that there could be quite a lot of redundancy built into the brain.
There was a discussion on this very forum recently of people with only half their brain intact still being able to do left and right brain functions.

maybe not ‘redundancy’ as such.. more plasticity and adaptation

Peak Warming Man said:

What job he does is irrelevant, the fact that he is functioning normally with such a small brain capacity is very interesting, it means that there could be quite a lot of redundancy built into the brain.
There was a discussion on this very forum recently of people with only half their brain intact still being able to do left and right brain functions.

Recalls from the seventies or thereabouts, when it was said that of the human brain, we only need to use a small percentage of it. That in fact we rarely use much of it at all and that if only we could harness the bits we don’t use..?

roughbarked said:

Peak Warming Man said:

What job he does is irrelevant, the fact that he is functioning normally with such a small brain capacity is very interesting, it means that there could be quite a lot of redundancy built into the brain.
There was a discussion on this very forum recently of people with only half their brain intact still being able to do left and right brain functions.

Recalls from the seventies or thereabouts, when it was said that of the human brain, we only need to use a small percentage of it. That in fact we rarely use much of it at all and that if only we could harness the bits we don’t use..?

I think that’s been debunked.

I’ve met a lot of people with less than half a brain, usually caused by a build up of fluid in the form of Bundy n Coke. Unfortunately they amn’t that smrt.

Arts said:

roughbarked said:

Peak Warming Man said:

What job he does is irrelevant, the fact that he is functioning normally with such a small brain capacity is very interesting, it means that there could be quite a lot of redundancy built into the brain.
There was a discussion on this very forum recently of people with only half their brain intact still being able to do left and right brain functions.

Recalls from the seventies or thereabouts, when it was said that of the human brain, we only need to use a small percentage of it. That in fact we rarely use much of it at all and that if only we could harness the bits we don’t use..?

I think that’s been debunked.

yeah that’s very likely also in my recall bank.

I have an invisible disability that I often refer to as having half a brain. It stems from infections in early life that ruined the neural pathways that are the inner ear connections to the brain. Rather than being physically deaf due to ear malfunction, a hearing aid would never help, it is more that I’m half brain dead.

so does this man have lower than average IQ?

diddly-squat said:

so does this man have lower than average IQ?

yes… 80 according to the article.

Dropbear said:

diddly-squat said:

so does this man have lower than average IQ?

yes… 80 according to the article.

I don’t find it overly unbelievable that lowly skilled and/or repetitive clerical work could be successfully carried out by someone with a lower then average IQ.

diddly-squat said:

Dropbear said:

diddly-squat said:

so does this man have lower than average IQ?

yes… 80 according to the article.

I don’t find it overly unbelievable that lowly skilled and/or repetitive clerical work could be successfully carried out by someone with a lower then average IQ.

I’m an excellent driver.

Tony Abbot
Andrew Bolt
The list goes on……..

the pictures are interesting.. his brain on left ‘normal’ brain on right

Can we call him airhead?

Divine Angel said:

Can we call him airhead?

Nah, it’s fluid….

Very cool stuff.

I saw a baby with a similar CT scan, but his was from a terrible infection as a neonate. He didn’t develop cognitively at all :-(

buffy said:

Divine Angel said:

Can we call him airhead?

Nah, it’s fluid….

.

Air is a fluid.

>On average, a civil servant only needs to know how to get to work and back.

And where would we be without such administration, essential as it has been, and still is.

Arts said:

the pictures are interesting.. his brain on left ‘normal’ brain on right

Eek, that’s even a lot worse than the famous “tamping pole” accident, where a person survived this damage with minimal impairment.

Some people survive with minimal impairment with very small physical brain size. I’m not sure if this is one such case:

LOL Why did I automatically assume
this was another Tony Abbott thread?

Ogmog said:

LOL Why did I automatically assume
this was another Tony Abbott thread?

Tony Abbott has this effect on cats

Cat 1

Cat 2

Cat 3

Cat 4

Cat 5