No Cerebellum? No Problem!

[ridethecliche]

Well kinda. But you can be born without one and survive!

http://www.newscientist.com/article...-no-cerebellum-in-her-brain.html#.VBGx_6MZHQR

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[tiedyeddog]

Well kinda. But you can be born without one and survive!

http://www.newscientist.com/article...-no-cerebellum-in-her-brain.html#.VBGx_6MZHQR

I thought this was a very interesting story. It just goes to show how adaptive the brain can be.

 

[ridethecliche]

I know, right?

Just delayed development both in terms of motor function as well as in speech acquisition. Fascinating!

 

[DokterMom]

Child of a friend has that. Inspiring situation...

Edit: Sorry - Agenesis of the corpus collosum, not the cerebellum. Wrong part - but very similar symptoms in his case.

 

[ebasappa]

I read this today! This is crazy! I wonder if the patient's brain made up for a missing cerebellum by increasing its plasticity and integrating this somewhere in the hemispheres? I would love to see if there was a higher density of neurons in her brain, or perhaps implement an fMRI during tasks to see if there was more activity! It says she lives an almost-normal life, so I'm assuming her increased plasticity to make up for this did not come at the expense of other functions.

 

[Spinach Dip]

 

[Plecopotamus]

Child of a friend has that. Inspiring situation...

Child of a friend has complete absence of the cerebellum in absence of other CNS malformation (extremely rare)? or child of a friend has some variant of dandy walker sydrome (not so rare)?

 

[DokterMom]

Child of a friend has complete absence of the cerebellum in absence of other CNS malformation (extremely rare)? or child of a friend has some variant of dandy walker sydrome (not so rare)?

Sorry - Agenesis of the corpus collosum, not the cerebellum. Wrong part - but very similar symptoms in his case.

 

[LA1004]

Sorry - Agenesis of the corpus collosum, not the cerebellum. Wrong part - but very similar symptoms in his case.

That is great to hear. A newborn being seen by the doctor I was shadowing also had Agenesis of the corpus collosum, but he wasn't positive the child could live a normal life and my time shadowing him ended soon after meeting the child. I'm glad that child has hope to live a normal life.

 

[DokterMom]

That is great to hear. A newborn being seen by the doctor I was shadowing also had Agenesis of the corpus collosum, but he wasn't positive the child could live a normal life and my time shadowing him ended soon after meeting the child. I'm glad that child has hope to live a normal life.

This particular young man has some learning disabilities, (mostly speech and executive function), but thanks to a very determined mom, is doing really well. Think Forrest Gump-level abilities.