You might not want to do it, but removing half of your brain will not significantly impact who you are.
The operation known as hemispherectomy, where half of the brains removed sounds too radical to ever consider, much less perform. In the past century, surgeons performed hundreds of times in diseases uncontrollable otherwise. Incredibly, the operation has no apparent effect on personality or memory.
The first known hemispherectomy was performed on a dog in 1888 by the German physiologist Friedrich Goltz. In humans, neurosurgeon Walter Dandy pioneered the surgery at Johns Hopkins University in 1923 with a brain tumor patient. (That man lived for more than three years before finally succumbing to cancer.) The procedure is one of the most radical forms of brain surgery, "You can take. More than half if you take the whole thing, you have a problem, "Johns Hopkins neurologist John Freeman joked.
A side effect Canadian neurosurgeon Kenneth McKenzie reported in 1938 after a lobotomy on a 16-year-old girl who had a stroke that stopped her attacks. Today, the surgery is performed on patients suffering dozens of attacks every day that resist all medication and as a result of circumstances that usually afflict a hemisphere. "These diseases are usually progressive, and damage to the rest of the brains if not treated," University of California, Los Angeles, said neurosurgeon Gary Mathern. Freeman closes: "hemispherectomy is something one does only when the alternatives are worse."
Anatomical hemispherectomies involve the removal of the entire hemisphere, whereas functional hemispherectomies only parts of a half-sphere, and cutting of the corpus callosum, the fiber bundle that connect the two hemispheres. The evacuated cavity left blank, fill cerebrospinal fluid in a day or so.
The strength of anatomical hemispherectomies, a specialty of Hopkins, lies in the fact that "leaving even a little brain can attack to lead back behind," says Freeman. On the other hand, functional hemispherectomies UCLA which surgeons often perform, result in less blood loss. "Our patients are usually younger than two years, so they have to lose less blood," says Mathern. Most Hopkins hemispherectomy patients five to 10 years.
Neurosurgeons have the surgery performed on children over three months of age. Amazingly, memory and develop normally. Personality A recent study found that 86 percent of the 111 children who underwent hemispherectomy at Hopkins between 1975 and 2001 are either seizure-free or have nondisabling seizures that do not require medication. The patients who still suffer attacks usually have birth defects or developmental abnormalities, which damage to the brains is often limited to only one hemisphere, Freeman says.
Another study found that children who underwent hemispherectomies often academically improved once stopped their attacks. "One was champion bowler of her class, was a chess champion of his state, and others are in college doing very nicely," says Freeman.
Of course, the surgery has its downside:. "You can walk, run, dance or skip some, you lose the use of the hand in front of the brain that has been deleted You have limited function in that arm and vision on that side is lost," says Freeman.
Some other effects seen remarkable. If the left side of the brains taken, "most people have problems with their speech, but used to think that if you're after the age of two names that way, you would never talk, and we have proven untrue," says Freeman. "The younger a person is when they hemispherectomy, the fewer restrictions you have to talk. Where on the right side of the brains speech is transmitted to and what it displaces is something no one has really worked to undergo."
Mathern and his colleagues have recently completed the first functional magnetic resonance imaging study of hemispherectomy patients conducted to investigate how their brains change with physical rehabilitation. Probing how to acquire language, sensory, motor, and other features remaining hemispheres of these patients "can shed much light on the plasticity of the brains, or the ability to change," Freeman notes. Still, with half a brain and thus only the use of a hand and a half field of view of each eye is a condition most would rather avoid.
The operation known as hemispherectomy, where half of the brains removed sounds too radical to ever consider, much less perform. In the past century, surgeons performed hundreds of times in diseases uncontrollable otherwise. Incredibly, the operation has no apparent effect on personality or memory.
The first known hemispherectomy was performed on a dog in 1888 by the German physiologist Friedrich Goltz. In humans, neurosurgeon Walter Dandy pioneered the surgery at Johns Hopkins University in 1923 with a brain tumor patient. (That man lived for more than three years before finally succumbing to cancer.) The procedure is one of the most radical forms of brain surgery, "You can take. More than half if you take the whole thing, you have a problem, "Johns Hopkins neurologist John Freeman joked.A side effect Canadian neurosurgeon Kenneth McKenzie reported in 1938 after a lobotomy on a 16-year-old girl who had a stroke that stopped her attacks. Today, the surgery is performed on patients suffering dozens of attacks every day that resist all medication and as a result of circumstances that usually afflict a hemisphere. "These diseases are usually progressive, and damage to the rest of the brains if not treated," University of California, Los Angeles, said neurosurgeon Gary Mathern. Freeman closes: "hemispherectomy is something one does only when the alternatives are worse."
Anatomical hemispherectomies involve the removal of the entire hemisphere, whereas functional hemispherectomies only parts of a half-sphere, and cutting of the corpus callosum, the fiber bundle that connect the two hemispheres. The evacuated cavity left blank, fill cerebrospinal fluid in a day or so.
The strength of anatomical hemispherectomies, a specialty of Hopkins, lies in the fact that "leaving even a little brain can attack to lead back behind," says Freeman. On the other hand, functional hemispherectomies UCLA which surgeons often perform, result in less blood loss. "Our patients are usually younger than two years, so they have to lose less blood," says Mathern. Most Hopkins hemispherectomy patients five to 10 years.
Neurosurgeons have the surgery performed on children over three months of age. Amazingly, memory and develop normally. Personality A recent study found that 86 percent of the 111 children who underwent hemispherectomy at Hopkins between 1975 and 2001 are either seizure-free or have nondisabling seizures that do not require medication. The patients who still suffer attacks usually have birth defects or developmental abnormalities, which damage to the brains is often limited to only one hemisphere, Freeman says.
Another study found that children who underwent hemispherectomies often academically improved once stopped their attacks. "One was champion bowler of her class, was a chess champion of his state, and others are in college doing very nicely," says Freeman.
Of course, the surgery has its downside:. "You can walk, run, dance or skip some, you lose the use of the hand in front of the brain that has been deleted You have limited function in that arm and vision on that side is lost," says Freeman.
Some other effects seen remarkable. If the left side of the brains taken, "most people have problems with their speech, but used to think that if you're after the age of two names that way, you would never talk, and we have proven untrue," says Freeman. "The younger a person is when they hemispherectomy, the fewer restrictions you have to talk. Where on the right side of the brains speech is transmitted to and what it displaces is something no one has really worked to undergo."
Mathern and his colleagues have recently completed the first functional magnetic resonance imaging study of hemispherectomy patients conducted to investigate how their brains change with physical rehabilitation. Probing how to acquire language, sensory, motor, and other features remaining hemispheres of these patients "can shed much light on the plasticity of the brains, or the ability to change," Freeman notes. Still, with half a brain and thus only the use of a hand and a half field of view of each eye is a condition most would rather avoid.
