Cutis Verticis Gyrata: Condition Causes Man's Scalp To Look Like A Brain

In this week's New England Journal of Medicine, doctors from the Hospital Universitario de Santa Maria in Brazil highlight the curious scalp of a 21-year-old patient -- it looks like a brain.

The man has a condition called cutis verticis gyrata, which is when the scalp has "ridges and furrows resembling the brain's surface," the doctors wrote in the article.

The changes to the man's scalp had only started appearing two years before he was physically examined by doctors, they said in the article. He had intellectual impairment, but they reported that he didn't have any other sorts of symptoms -- because of this, they didn't do anything to change his scalp.

The condition "can be associated with some rare genetic conditions, but most commonly occurs by itself," Dr. Josh Zeichner, who is an assistant dermatology professor at Mount Sinai Medical Center, told ABC News. He added that treatments for the condition are mainly cosmetic.

Medscape reported that the condition was first described in 1843, though the term cutis verticis gyrata wasn't actually used until 1907.