Can We Live With Half of Our Brain??

There are extreme examples of people who live normal lives despite missing a part of their brain. Tom Stafford explains how this is possible.

How much of our brain do we really need? News about people with missing or damaged parts of their brains has appeared in the media several times recently. These cases show that we not only do not fully understand how the brain works, but we may also be mishandling it. A few months ago, news broke that a woman was missing the cerebellum region at the back of her brain. So this part wasn't damaged, it wasn't there at all. According to some estimates, half of our total brain cells are located in the cerebellum. But this 24-year-old woman was living a normal life. She completed her education, got married and had a child after a normal pregnancy. But this situation did not have a complete impact on the woman. She had acted hesitantly and clumsily throughout her life. But the most surprising thing was that he could move without a part of his brain. The cerebellum is such a basic region of the brain that it appeared in the first vertebrates. Even when dinosaurs were alive, sharks' cerebellums were developed.

There is no simple scheme

This incident shows the sad state of science regarding the brain. There are still disagreements about the function of some important regions, such as the cerebellum. When such cases occur, our ignorance about the brain comes to light. Brain scans in hospitals reveal that brain structure may differ from person to person. It may also be possible to see that these differences have an impact on our behavior when observed closely. The case of the woman without the cerebellum shows that there is no simple schema for the brain. Although it may be tempting to simplify the brain by dividing it into regions such as the vision area and the hunger or love feeling area, there are actually no such areas in the brain. Because it is not a technological device in which only one region is responsible for each function.

Living with a strip on your brain

Another case involved a man who had been living with a stripe parasite in his brain for some time. This strip, which has been nestled in the brain for four years, has caused seizures similar to epilepsy, memory problems and interesting smell sensations. In fact, these are minor side effects despite a living presence in the brain. If the brain were an advanced technological device, it would not be possible for it to continue functioning. One of the reasons for the brain's resilience is its 'flexibility', its ability to adapt to its environment. Another reason may have to do with a concept developed by Nobel Prize-winning neurologist Gerald Edelman. Edelman recognized that biological functions are supported by multiple structures; For example, a single physical feature is the result of the coding of many genes. Thus, the removal of a single gene cannot prevent the emergence of that feature. Edelman called the feature of a single function being supported by many different structures 'degeneracy'.

One function, many regions

The same goes for the brain. The individual functions of our brain are not concentrated in certain regions, but are carried out with the support of many regions; Although their functioning is similar, there are also minor differences. The disruption that occurs on one side is compensated by other regions. This is the problem that cognitive neurologists, who study the functioning of the brain, face when trying to determine what different parts of the brain do. If you attribute only one function to a region, you will reach wrong conclusions. The cerebellum is known as the region that controls individual special movements. However, the sections called basal ganglia and motor cortex are also closely related to our body movements. It would be a mistake to try to determine the exact function of each region when they all contribute to the same thing. Memory is a basic biological function that is under the control of many brain systems. When you run into someone you've seen before, you may think that person is a good person, or that you remember something good they did, or that they evoked good feelings in you. These are all forms of memory that remind you in different ways that you can trust that person. Edelman sees the 'degeneracy' feature as an inevitable product of natural selection. This phenomenon actually explains why unusual situations related to the brain do not result in disaster. And why scientists have difficulty understanding the functions of the brain.