The Brain That Remade Itself

The Brain That Remade Itself

Andrew Zaleski

"Doctors removed one-sixth of this child’s brain — and what was left did something incredible"

Surgeons cut out the entire right occipital lobe and half of the temporal lobe of Collins’ brain. Those lobes are important for processing the information that passes through our eyes’ optic nerves, allowing us to see. These regions are also critical for recognizing faces and objects and attaching corresponding names. There was no way of being sure whether Collins would ever see again, recognize his parents, or even develop normally after the surgery.

And then the miraculous happened: Despite the loss of more than 15 percent of his brain, Collins turned out to be fine.

The fact that the brain has a malleable capacity to change itself isn’t new. What’s less understood is how exactly the brain does it. That’s where Behrmann’s study of Collins comes in. Her research question is twofold: To what extent can the remaining structures of Collins’ brain take over the functions of the part of his brain that was removed? And can science describe how the brain carries out these changes, all the way down to the cellular level?

Previous neuroplasticity research has shed light on how the brain forms new neuronal connections with respect to memory, language, or learning abilities. (It’s the basis for popular brain-training games meant to improve short-term memory.) But Behrmann’s research is the first longitudinal study to look closely at what happens in the brain after the regions involved in visual processing are lost through surgery or damaged due to a traumatic brain injury.

This whole topic has me at least, thinking that the idea that our brains influence our behaviour, is a lot more of a moveable feast. That is to say, our brains may develop in accordance with our thought processes, rather than our thoughts being the result of brain processes. A bit of a leap, given the specific example described above, but more broadly it seems a reasonable idea, to me.