He Had Almost No Brain, But Was Bilingual With Near-Normal Verbal Skills

Neuroscientists are members of a belief community dedicated to preserving the dogma that the brain is the source of the human mind. So when neuroscientists discover case histories that seem to defy such a dogma, neuroscientists tend to write up the results with papers having a title not likely to be noticed. An example of this was when neuroscientists discovered that a French civil servant had almost no brain. The case was written up in the British medical journal The Lancet with a paper having the title "Brain of a White Collar Worker," as if the authors were trying to get as few readers as possible by creating the dullest-sounding title they could create.  The paper had the visual below, in which missing parts of the brain are shown in black:

The 2007 paper told us that the subject had an overall IQ of 75 and a verbal IQ of 84, and that he was a father employed as a civil servant (a government worker). Such occupational success with so little brain defies claims that the brain is the source of the human mind. The Reuters story here discusses the case. 

An equally dramatic case of high mental function and very little brain was discussed in a 2018 paper with a title that also seemed chosen to attract as little attention as possible. The title of the paper (which can be read here) was "Volumetric MRI Analysis of a Case of Severe Ventriculomegaly," a title that sounds as dull as dishwater. But the case is a fascinating one. We read of a bilingual 60-year-old man with near-normal verbal skills but very little brain. 

We are given the visual below, which shows on the left the brain of the 60-year-old man, and on the right what a normal brain looks like. The black areas are areas in which normal brain tissue is gone, having been replaced by fluid. 

We read this about tests performed on the person whose brain is 

"The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III; Wechsler, 1997) revealed a borderline IQ of 79, with a verbal IQ of 88, non-verbal performance IQ of 74, poor working memory IQ of 71, verbal comprehension IQ of 93, and visual-spatial IQ of 80. The patient had difficulty completing tasks requiring working memory, which was in the 3rd percentile, and processing speed was extremely slow (in the 1st percentile)."

A verbal IQ of 88 is near-normal, and a normal verbal IQ is about 100. 

We read that this person with little brain tissue was bilingual (in other words, someone who could speak two languages). We read that he "plays guitar well." We hear some vague, vacuous speculation trying (in the thinnest way) to offer a bit of explanation of how someone with so little brain could have "preserved function, including being fluent in two languages and mastering playing a musical instrument."

I have another example of a neuroscientist paper with a dull-as-dishwater title but a sensational case of high mental function and little brain tissue. It is the paper "Colpocephaly in adults" which you can read here. We read of a 60-year-old woman who had the great majority of her brain destroyed by a congenital disease, apparently one present from birth or from early childhood. We read this:

"Growing up, she had a reading learning disability; however, she graduated from high school with average grades, married in her 20s and had one child. She worked in a factory and most recently as a home health aide. At the time of presentation...She was alert, appropriately oriented and had normal language function."  

Below is what the woman's brain looked like. The black areas are areas hollowed out by the congenital disease. 

The cases discussed here are only a fraction of the cases of high mental function despite extremely severe brain loss. You can read of many more such cases in my post here. Collectively the cases provide one of the strongest reasons for thinking that the brain is not the source of the human mind.