Michelle Mack was born with only half her brain, but remarkably the brain rewired itself. CNN's Campbell Brown reports.
WATCH:
Born with half a brain, woman living full life - CNN.com
Born with half a brain, woman living full life - CNN.com
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*biting lip, hard* Must...not...give...in...
I thought this going to be about Michelle Bachmann. Sorry.
HAHAHAHA! Me too! and it fits Michelle Malkin as well.
too many sexist jokes...must resist....
II have a ex that was born like that. . .
My wife is a pediatric neurologist who studies brain function. For her PhD shestudied inter-hemispheric transfer of language in split-brain patients and proved that some language information is transferred lower down in the brain than previously thought. She then studied how the brains of epileptic children who had undergone hysterectomies to eliminate seizures. She showed how if the procedure is done early enough the brains of these kids are rewired, and that it takes a scan to show that these kids' brains are not normal.
Now as an MD, she treats and studies recovery of brain function post-TBI (Traumatic Brian Injury). Unfortunately, because there are so many brain injured soldiers returning from battle, there is money available to do thee studies. Her study population are virtually ALL 14 year old skateboarders who, last month, were too cool to wear a helmet but this month their moms are feeding them soft foods and wiping their butts.
Make sure your kids ALWAYS wear a helmet!
But the brain is sure cool!
I think you mean hemispherectomies.
How having your uterus removed would eliminate seizures is unclear.
hah! hysterectomies should read hemispherectomies
gotta love spell-checkers :)
I often make such mistakes, but I'm a stroke survivor, what's YOUR excuse ? :)
Whoops, thought this was another piece on Sara Palin.
no sorry,
she doesn't have one so there is nothing to rewire
LOL! I thought it was about Orly Taitz!
Actually, this isn't so unusual. Lots of people switch from the Republican party.
Oops, my mistake. From the title, I assumed this was a piece on Liz Cheney.
"Use what's left."
Ha ha..if they used what's "left," maybe then having half a brain for them wouldn't be so obvious!!!
Palin and Bachman were also born with half a brain, but they've never learned how to use what's left.
She seemed to have had a stroke while En Utero, before birth. If you're going to have a stroke, that's the best time during Central Nervous System development. Young minds are more malleable and grow as needed. When I was a boy hiking in the hills with my father we would frequently come across large old trees that had grown around older barbwire fences. To me it appeared as if someone had somehow placed the wire through the tree, like a ship in a bottle. How did they do that? My dad smiled and told me the tree grew that way.
The synapses in our brains works similarly when we experience obstacles. Synapses do not physically contact one another. They have gaps or junctions, between which they arc and release chemical inhibitors and exciters, which propagate or cease propagation of a signal among billions of nerve cells. Any given array of signals at the cerebral cortex over a period of microseconds would constitute a thought, memory or sensation. Young brains have the capacity to reconfigure these connections easily and quickly. The down side to that is young people have little or no discipline to match the power of their imagination. With age, however, plasticity decreases. We gradually become set in our ways as we rethink old patterns forming a well worn path of thinking and will not necessarily recover so easily from a stroke.
It's not just young brains that rewire themselves.
At the age of 74, my mother had a stroke that caused her to lose speech, coordination, recognition of shapes and mobility on her left side.
I nursed her for a year and witnessed miraculous recoveries. One day, she started laughing and screamed: "Alan, I can read again". She was looking at the back side of a newspaper I was reading when suddenly reading and comprehension came back. The brain rewired.
The most dramatic and visible example was numbers. She had lost the ability to count, add or subtract. She could not add two numbers together.
She was a dedicated gambler, and convinced me to take her to Atlantic City. I talk to the pit bosses and explained my mother's problem counting and they allowed me to sit beside her, counting out her cards at the blackjack table.
Three hands in, and my mother won $318 without my help. The association of the cards with numeric values caused her brain to rewire itself, on the spot. The brain found a pathway, and from that day on she never again had a problem with numbers.
She's gone now, but I am still profoundly moved and amazed by the brain's ability to heal itself, rewire itself and continue on despite profound injury.
The human being is an astonishing, brilliant creation.
Now if only our compassion and souls could keep pace....
Nice story about your mom. Thank you for the encouragement. I hope everyone who has a family member suffering a stroke, reads this letter.
I hope this helps stroke research. I have heard that the brain can compensate for damage, but if it can rewire, this is exciting science fiction becomes reality territory.
See my other post. It has been long known that the brain can rewire. It often happens in stroke victims. What's new is the idea that it can rewire itself across hemispheres.
Hope she doesn't move to Florida. Remember Terri Schiavo?
What on earth are you talking about?
I don't recall Ms. Schiavo talking and interacting like this, or having more than a tiny amount of cerebral cortex tissue left on either side.
So because Terri couldn't speak or interact you can say with 100% certainty that she wasn't a thinking being?
What about people with cerebral palsy or stroke ? Should we kill them too because they don't speak or react?
Michelle is fortunate that she can speak and react. If you were just provided with her MRI you'd think she was a just an empty shell wouldn't you?
yes - terri schaivo had a stroke.
She had an eating disorder. While growing up her family used to tease her about her weight.
Her family is responsible for her stroke - and wanted to ease their own guilt by ignoring her wishes for End-of-life care.
It was her husband who "teased" her about her weight.
But, it was a complicated and unusual situation.
Still 10 times more gray matter than Limbaugh.
I saw her on the new this morning, half a brain, and yet still smarter than 97% of neocons!
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First Posted: 10-13-09 12:58 AM | Updated: 10-13-09 01:08 AM