ik heb jaren terug een documentaire op de TV gezien die het ontbreken van hersenen als onderwerp had. In Engeland was een jongen met een behoorlijk inteligentie niveau, die geen hersenweefsel bezat. Zijn hoofd was gevult met vocht.
Ik heb een tijdje geleden op een ander forum al opzoekwerk gedaan aangaande dit eigenste onderwerp
je kan het nalezen op
http://www.freethinker.nl/forum/viewtopic....er=asc&start=15
Daaruit vat ik het volgende eventjes samen
.... een docu over een groep (Engelse) kinderen die met een zgn "waterhoofd" geboren zijn en extreem weinig hersenweefsel hebben, meestal zijn kinderen met die afwijking zeer zwaar gehandicapt maar sommigen zoals die in de d ocu zijn normaal en zitten zelfs tegen geniaal aan in hun ontwikkeling en capaciteiten.
.....
Ik meen me te herinneren dat de docu door de BBC was
Ik ging dus nog eens zoeken in de archieven van de BBC : dit soort gericht ,zoeken had succes
http://www.catholic-family.org/Information/fpain.html
Hydrocephaly
Equally dramatic suggestions that many functions hitherto attributed to the cerebral cortex can be effectively accomplished by centres lower in the brain
have emerged from research by Professor John Lorber of Sheffield University.6
Lorber has used scanning techniques to study a number of individuals with hydrocephalus who in other respects appear and behave normally.
He has demonstrated that reduction of the thickness of the cerebral hemisphere (normally about 45 millimetres) to a "millimetre or so" had occurred in one otherwise normal university student.
Thus Lorber concluded that
Quote:
"the cortex is probably responsible for a great deal less than most people imagine
" and he inferred that many assumed cortical functions in this person were located in primitive deep brain structures unaffected by hydrocephalus6
(see footnote B, below).
De observaties die deze ondertussen overleden prof Lorber heeft gedaan stammen uit de tachtiger jaren ...
Peer reviewed artikels schijnen ( niet meer ) voorhanden te zijn ...
Wel een massa diskussies op new-age , ufonauten , para en randwetenschappen sites ....en steeds maar weer hetzelfde artikel uit de "guardian " ..... plus veel Rupert Sheldrake en " essays over het morfogenetisch veld .... "
en hier vond ik uiteindelijk dan toch het moderne antwoord ( 2004) op deze kwestie
http://www.sci-con.org/articles/reprints/20040901.pdf
waaruit volgende relevante quote
Lorber's claims were never publicly refuted. And Lorber who died in 1996 stuck firmly to his story, claiming that in 500 CT scans he had found many
hydrocephalics with hardly any brain left above the level of the brainstem and yet living ordinary lives (Lorber, 1981).
So a little detective work was needed to get to the bottom of this one.
Talking to colleagues and contemporaries of Lorber, it was revealed he was probably greatly exaggerating the extent of brain loss in his cases.
Said one source:
"If the cortical mantle actually had been compressed to a couple of millimetres, it wouldn't even have shown up on his X-rays."
Another agreed, adding that brain scans with modern techniques such as MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) show stretching, but not much real loss of brain
weight with slow-onset hydrocephalus.
He says the brain structure adapts to the space it is allowed:
"The cortex and its connections are still there, even if grossly distorted."
Sufferers with hydrocephalus also report many subtle symptoms that don't show up in standard tests of cognition.
They do well on basic reading and arithmetic or IQ-type questions, but struggle with focused attention, spatial imagination, general motor co-ordination,
and other skills that rely on longer-range integrative links across the brain.
This fits a picture of a brain in which all the cortical processing regions are in place but where the white matter - the wealth of insulated connections
that actually occupies much of the centre of the cerebral hemispheres - has been pulled out of shape.
So Lorber's results were striking but overplayed.
And certainly the rise of neuroimaging over the past decade ought finally to have put paid to this long-running myth about the 10 percent brain.
One of the most important lessons from the first scanning studies of brains actually caught in the act of thinking - with areas lighting up with increased
metabolic activity was just how widespread were the patterns of activation for the most minor mental responses.
No areas were silent, just relatively active or inactive in forming the reaction to the moment.
As Lashley came to realise, the brain is not a simple device but a complex organ whose supple logic we are only beginning to be able to appreciate.
New kinds of causal thinking are needed to model systems in which there is a localisation of function yet also global cohesion (McCrone 2004).
Nevertheless you can be pretty sure that without any special effort on your part, you are indeed using the whole of your brain the whole of the time.