They Did Well After a Huge Loss of Brain Tissue

The 1935 newspaper account below (which you can read here) is entitled "Half a Brain Good As Whole." We read of operations removing a half a brain, "without the least reduction of intellectual  ability."

An article on Buzzfeed.com is entitled "Autopsy Professionals Are Revealing The Most Bizarre Anomalies They've Seen, And Wow, The Human Body Is Truly A Wonder."  We hear some amazing stories about autopsies revealing brains that are mostly gone. 

The accounts are anonymous, giving them less credibility than testimony from named witnesses. But only a very tiny fraction of the population seems to realize the philosophical significance of an autopsy report showing someone who had few symptoms had huge brain tissue loss. So we can rather safely assume that these stories are not being made up to score points in the debate about whether the brain is the source of the mind. 

One user reports this coming up in an autopsy:

"An old woman with an incredibly thick skull all the way around. Her brain was much, much smaller than it should have been, but according to her family, she was fully functional and displayed no deficits of any kind. She actually ran her own cheese-making company and died from a carbon monoxide leak. Strangest case I ever saw!"

Another user reports this:

"I did an autopsy of a young kid, around 10 years old, who had hydrocephalus and was quadriplegic, yet retained some of his normal functions, like talking and understanding — albeit minimally. When I opened his skull, there was no brain. I was shocked. This was my first time witnessing something like this. There was approximately 1.5 liters of fluid and just an empty skull. The brain was so severely atrophied it was smaller than a golf ball."

How can someone do talking and understanding without a brain? Only if the brain is not the source of your mind. 

Another user reports this:

"I observed a lot of things during my professional autopsies. The most notorious was a guy with four .22 bullets in his cranium. He didn't claim pain and apparently lived a normal life."

We can only imagine how much brain tissue must have been lost in total when the last of these four bullets appeared in the person's brain. But nonetheless we are told he "lived a normal life."

Compared to such a case, the case reported below is much less impressive:

"An 85-year-old patient had a tumor in her brain. It was the size of a golf ball on her right lobe — unknown to her before death." 

The 2024 article here is entitled, "Doctors Successfully Remove a Tennis Ball-Sized Tumor in an 8-Hour Surgery." We read of a woman who had a huge brain tumor of 7 to 8 centimeters. We have a visual showing the tumor. The tumor appears as a whitish mass. 

We get a vague listing of some symptoms the patient suffered, without  much of anything in the way of specifics. Referring to resection of the tumor (which means removal) we read this:

"Radhika underwent a successful bifrontal craniotomy, guided by navigation and tumor fluorescence technology, allowing for complete excision of the tumor. Remarkably, within one week of the surgery, she returned to her normal life."

She returned to her normal life? That's not what we would expect after the removal of so large a part of the brain, under the hypothesis that your brain makes your mind. 

The story below (which you can read here) describes children who had half of their brains removed to treat epilepsy. The story flatly states that the children "do not lose any of their intelligence, but their fits and antisocial behavior disappear, according to Dr. Eugene P. Spitz of Children's Hospital, Philadelphia." 

Below (from the news account here) is a description of tests on the surgical removal of half of the brain of monkeys. The result is one we might expect under the idea that the brain is not the source of the mind. 

Here is a new story from 1933 noting "no changes in intellect" after an operation that removed "almost all of the right half of a woman's brain."

Below we have a 1937 newspaper account (which you can read here) of a woman who had the right half of her brain removed in an operation. We are told that after this operation she had an IQ of 115, which is 15% higher than average. This is not what we would expect under the hypothesis that the brain is the source of the human mind. 

Below from a 1957 newspaper is another case of someone doing very well intellectually after the removal of the right half of the brain. 

In the news story here, we read that "Mark, of Palm Bay, Fla., is reading better and playing longer since the left side of his brain was removed in May." Note the exact words: "reading better," not reading worse. The news article here tells how a brain tumor of between 5 and 7 centimeters (about 2 to 3 inches) was discovered in the brain of the manager of a major league baseball team. The tumor was in the left front part of the brain, the same part reputed to be involved in executive functions. The manager had just successfully managed the American League team to victory in the All Star game. 

The news story here documents a very clear case of the preservation of memory after the removal of the left half of the cerebrum. We read of a 47-year-old man who had the left half of his cerebrum removed. We read this:

"Dr. Smith said the patient's memory of events before the operation 'was well preserved, much better than anyone expected.' Tests following surgery show Coe can perform many functions traditionally thought impossible after removal of the brain's dominant hemisphere. Immediately following surgery, Coe still had the ability to speak spontaneously."

A report like this does not merely contradict the claim that the brain is the source of the mind. It also contradicts the claim that the brain is a storage place of memories. 

The 1963 newspaper account here is entitled "Monkeys With Half a Brain." We read this:

"Fifty monkeys have had half of their brains removed. Their memories appear to be as complete as before surgery. Until this experiment was made, even doctors thought that such surgery would affect memory....Not only is memory retained; the monkeys are alert, intelligent, sociable, and have the same enthusiasm as doing things as before....What are some of things the team has discovered from observation of monkeys with half their brain removed? The monkeys remember how do things taught them before surgery. Such as which of two blocks of wood place under them has a reward under it -- a raisin or other food. Fears are recalled....'While the rhesus monkeys we test remember everything taught them before surgery, it takes them twice as long to learn something new as monkeys with both half of their brain,' explains Dr. Kruper. 'But the important thing is that they DO learn, even if it does take them longer.' "

I have by now published posts describing many different cases in which learned knowledge and episodic memories were well-preserved after the destruction of the left half of the brain. I have also published posts describing many other cases in which learned knowledge and episodic memories were well-preserved after the destruction of the right half of the brain. You can read about such cases in the text above and in my posts here, here and here. Such cases are all cases deserving the closest study by any neuroscientist claiming that brains store memories. The failure of most neuroscientists to collect and study cases of this type is a severe example of dereliction of duty, and a bad example of people failing to study whether a very important claim such people are making (the claim that brains store memories) is supported or discredited by observational evidence. 

Then there is the case of Sharon Parker. She is described in a 2003 news story entitled "Success of Nurse Who Lost Most of Her Brain." You can read the story here. We read this:

"When she was a baby, Sharon Parker's parents were told a rare and incurable condition meant she would not reach her fifth birthday.

She was left with only 15 per cent of her brain and there was little hope she could lead a normal life. But she defied the experts to become an astonishing success story.

Now 39, Mrs Parker is a nurse with a high IQ who is happily married with three children....She was diagnosed with congenital hydrocephalus - water on the brain - when she was nine months old. Doctors drained the liquid from her skull with a tube but her brain mass had been compacted in the outer edges of her skull, leaving a gaping hole in the middle....As a 16-year-old, she passed eight O-Levels and her IQ was later found to be 113, putting her in the top 20 per cent of the population.

The hydrocephalus has left her with a below-average short=term memory so she carries a notebook to remind herself to do things. However, tests have found that her long-term memory is better than average.

After leaving school, Mrs Parker decided to become a nurse and soon after starting her training, she met her future husband David, a builder who is now 45. The couple were married three years later and have three children...

She often participates in studies, including one recently in Ohio when she was examined by one of the world's leading experts on brain mass. Graham Teesdale, Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Glasgow, said she demonstrated how adaptable the brain can be even when it is incomplete. 'She shows how the brain has an immense capacity to cope and adapt,' he said. 'Some people with the same acute problem experience problems in thought processes but others are able to function totally normally.' "