People missing half their brain function almost perfectly normally according to a news story. "The operation known as hemispherectomy—where half the brain is removed—sounds too radical to ever consider, much less perform. In the last century, however, surgeons have performed it hundreds of times for disorders uncontrollable in any other way. Unbelievably, the surgery has no apparent effect on personality or memory." Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ar...4A4C4EE87581&chanId=sa013&modsrc=most_popular
if you sever the nerves between the 2 hemispheres your left and right brain can function independantly of each other, basically doubling your brain power.
That's got to be bullshit. There has to be some loss in cognitive ability when half of your brain is lanced off. Maybe no apparent ill effect on memory or personality, but isn't there such a thing as a right brained individual, or a left brain individual? Well, what happens when the logical left-brained guy gets his left hemisphere chopped off? What happens when the creative right-brained gal gets her right hemisphere buggered off? Is she still creative and a characteristically right-brained thinker? If so, then we've got some problems to work through. If not, then that article is bullshit.
Alas, the world is truly in turmoil when people with half a functioning brain can compare to those with an entire brain. Aren't our standards low?
Yes, and if you want to have fun with them you can show both of their eyes, one of a devil saying "hate" and another of an angel saying "love" and then ask them loaded questions like "how does the picture make you feel" "what does the picture say" "what color is the person in the picture wearing". To be completely honest, I like my brain in it's coherent, almost fully communicating state thank-you very much. Children who have half of their brain removed function SOMEWHAT normally. They tend to have what is called hemplegia which is often partial paralysis of half of the body. Adults who have it done tend not to do very well and might be fully hemiplegic and unable to speak. But really all we need is our brain stem to survive.
More than that, theres a slow degenerative disorder where the brain slowly errodes over time. Some severe patients have little more than a thin slither of brain tissue lining their skull and still manage to be perfectly functional and have high iqs. Incredibly stuff really.
Is this some type of atrophy? Alzheimer's? Do you know the name of it? I am fascinated by neurology and LOVE this stuff. Can lithium stop/prevent this?
Split-brain patients are far from intact cognitively. They may retain fairly normal memory function and personality traits but all of the integration of visual and verbal processing that we take for granted is gone. A split brain patient, for instance, will look at a chair with one eye (linked to hemisphere A) , and be unable to describe it at all (since verbal processing resides in hemisphere B) yet be able to sketch it with good accuracy. When asked what happened, the patient will usually make up some elaborate story to justify this disconnect in perception and cognition. There is no silly doubling of brain power, or any such nonsense. This is a radical procedure that may eleviate the terrible symptoms of grand mal epilepsy for instance, but it is far from without detrimental consequences.
Occasionally half a brain is removed to deal with "status epeliptus" (spelled wrong?). In one case at Johns Hopkins Hospital this was done on a young child, almost a baby, but I forget the age. Her development was followed for years afterwards. If there was any abnormality, it was very small, only detectable with sophisticated testing, but I forget the details. The young brain is very "plastic."
