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couldn't function with cerebralspinal fluids/with/without/ (also, though this is just nitpicking, s/cerebralspinal/cerebrospinal/)
Cerebrospinal fluid (hereafter referred to as CSF) is actually very interesting. I don't think scientists/doctors have it fully figured out just yet (given how little we understand the brain in general, no surprise).
Of particular interest are persons with very anomalous findings: fully functioning with virtually no real "brain" to speak of, just plenty of CSF sloshing around. When I first came across this, I was certain it was a hoax.
Later, a colleague at Sheffield University became aware of a young man with a larger than normal head. He was referred to Lorber even though it had not caused him any difficulty. Although the boy had an IQ of 126 and had a first class honours degree in mathematics, he had "virtually no brain". A noninvasive measurement of radio density known as CAT scan showed the boy's skull was lined with a thin layer of brain cells to a millimeter in thickness. The rest of his skull was filled with cerebrospinal fluid. The young man continues a normal life with the exception of his knowledge that he has no brain.
Although anecdotal accounts may be found in medical literature, Lorber is the first to provide a systematic study of such cases. He has documented over 600 scans of people with hydrocephalus and has broken them into four groups:
-those with nearly normal brains
-those with 50-70% of the cranium filled with cerebrospinal fluid
-those with 70-90% of the cranium filled with cerebrospinal fluid
-and the most severe group with 95% of the cranial cavity filled with cerebrospinal fluid.
Of the last group, which comprised less than 10% of the study, half were profoundly retarded. The remaining half had IQs greater than 100.
More citations:
http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/science/is_the_brain_really_ne...
http://www.rifters.com/real/articles/Science_No-Brain.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lorber
s/with/without/ (also, though this is just nitpicking, s/cerebralspinal/cerebrospinal/)
Cerebrospinal fluid (hereafter referred to as CSF) is actually very interesting. I don't think scientists/doctors have it fully figured out just yet (given how little we understand the brain in general, no surprise).
Of particular interest are persons with very anomalous findings: fully functioning with virtually no real "brain" to speak of, just plenty of CSF sloshing around. When I first came across this, I was certain it was a hoax.
Later, a colleague at Sheffield University became aware of a young man with a larger than normal head. He was referred to Lorber even though it had not caused him any difficulty. Although the boy had an IQ of 126 and had a first class honours degree in mathematics, he had "virtually no brain". A noninvasive measurement of radio density known as CAT scan showed the boy's skull was lined with a thin layer of brain cells to a millimeter in thickness. The rest of his skull was filled with cerebrospinal fluid. The young man continues a normal life with the exception of his knowledge that he has no brain.
Although anecdotal accounts may be found in medical literature, Lorber is the first to provide a systematic study of such cases. He has documented over 600 scans of people with hydrocephalus and has broken them into four groups:
Of the last group, which comprised less than 10% of the study, half were profoundly retarded. The remaining half had IQs greater than 100.More citations:
http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/science/is_the_brain_really_ne...
http://www.rifters.com/real/articles/Science_No-Brain.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lorber