Can I live without the brain?
Last reviewed: 26.11.2021
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
The recent news from the University of Salk that a group of researchers managed to create a human brain cell in the laboratory has stirred up the scientific community, but some experts continue to ask the question, but is the brain important to humans, as it is believed? Such a question arose after academics learned about an unusual guy from France who considered himself quite normal, lived and worked as a civil servant, raised children and did not differ from most of his peers until he learned that he did not have a head the brain. The peculiarity of the Frenchman was revealed quite by chance on an ordinary examination, which is often prescribed in the hospital.
About his uniqueness, Mathieu learned at age 44, when he turned to the doctors with a complaint about pain in his legs, which lasted more than 10 days.
At that time, neither the examination nor the diagnosis of the patient's legs revealed pathologies. Then the doctors prescribed a full examination and after the brain was scanned by the mother, the doctors were, to put it mildly, shocked - the size of the patient's brain was so small that at first it was not even considered.
A further study of an unusual patient showed that the reason for the absence of the brain was the filling of the skull with cerebrospinal fluid, leaving only a part of the gray matter.
Excess cerebrospinal fluid was formed in Mathieu after he had had hydrocephalus (a fluid accumulation in the brain) in his childhood .
But when Matthew turned 44, the illness reminded herself of leg pains and physicians for 8 years trying to find a way to cure an unusual patient.
Specialists for a long time could not understand how a person can live with a brain of this size.
A survey of a unique patient showed that his mental and neurological condition is normal, there were no serious health problems throughout his life. Neuropsychological research showed that the Frenchman had a low level of intelligence (75 at the rate of 85), but this did not affect life and work by Mathieu. Also the unique Frenchman has two children and lives happily in marriage for many years, while his children have a normal brain and develop according to their age, so the experts excluded the hereditary factor.
Scientists suggest that neither Matthew himself nor the scientists would ever know about this, if it were not for the leg pain with which the Frenchman came to the hospital.
Well, while the question is being solved, the brain is important for a person or not, experts from different countries continue to explore this unique body. In Ohio, a team of scientists was able to create in the laboratory an analogue of the brain of a 5-month-old human fetus, which is considered to be the most complete model (earlier it was possible to create only some areas, but not the whole organ).
Such developments are extremely important for researchers, because they will allow us to better understand the relationships and establish the causes of the development of certain diseases, for example, Alzheimer's, which modern medicine, unfortunately, is not able to cure.
[