A curious show and evidence is going down on Reddit right now . Over in the 13 - million - strong subredditr / interestingasfuck , people are share CAT scan of their brain in which it appears part of their brains are escape . How can this be possible ? It all comes down to plasticity .
For example , back in 2016 , a woman known as “ EG ” offer her brain CAT scan to scientists because it wasmissing the left temporal lobe . She ’d eff nothing about it until a CAT scan in 1987 disclose the missing lobe , and had otherwise go a normal – and bilingual – life . We emphasize the fact she was bilingual because the temporal lobe is thought to be responsible forlanguage processingin most masses – and yet here was EG , speaking two speech .
working magnetic rapport imaging ( fMRI ) demo that EG ’s brain had found a way to compensate with a fully functional language net sitting in its correct hemisphere . This kind of rewire is an example of neuralplasticityin which the brain changes throughregrowthand reorganization .
brainiac plasticityis what enables us to develop cognitively from baby into adulthood , forever correcting modest errors along the path . thing get trickier when severe errors take place due to cerebrovascular accident , diseases likeZika virus , or traumatic hurt – but even in extreme examples , we ’ve seen multitude recover a remarkable amount of function .
How EG ’s brain adapted so well could have something to do with the timeline of her condition ’s emergence .
“ We find that — as expected for early left over - hemisphere damage — EG has a to the full running language web in her right hemisphere [ … ] and entire linguistic abilities , ” write the discipline authors . “ However , we discover no reply to lyric in EG ’s left frontal lobe . ”
It ’s thought a slash when EG was very youthful may excuse why this segment of her brain is omit . The interruption leave behind is now satisfy with cerebrospinal fluid , which shows up on MRI as a dark outer space .
Other Reddit user have joined the conversation , sharing their experience and CAT scan – including an example of how arachnoid cyst can take up space in the brainpower .
It ’s nice to screw that Tim Berners - Lee ’s imaginativeness that The Web would touch base people broaden to people with remarkable brains , and we can all learn a minute about brain plasticity in the procedure .
