They Had Good Minds After Losing the Left Half of Their Brains

Although neuroscientists are brain specialists, very many neuroscientists are not very deep and broad scholars of the topic of human brains. A typical neuroscientist may be able to tell you in very great detail about some narrow facet of human brains, and may be able to tell you in the greatest detail about how to use some machine that is used to study brains. But the same neuroscientist may have failed to properly study the topic of human brains in a way that involves learning about every relevant thing you could about human brains. Ask that neuroscientist to tell you what happens when you remove half of a human brain, and you may get an answer that is wrong. Ask that neuroscientist to tell you how reliably chemical synapses transmit nerve signals (action potentials), and you may get an answer that is wrong. Ask that neuroscientist to tell you how quickly a brain electrically shuts down when the heart stops (reaching a state called asystole), and you may get an answer that is wrong. 

Part of the job of properly studying brains is to study very thoroughly all of the most impressive cases of high mental performance despite very high brain damage. Relatively few neuroscientists show signs of having studied such a topic. In order to properly study such a topic, you must study unusual medical case histories.  Very many of the most important and relevant medical case histories are recorded in books, newspapers and magazines. But can you ever recall reading of a neuroscientist searching newspapers for unusual case histories in neuroscience? I can never recall reading of such activity by a neuroscientist. 

Luckily there are some web sites that contain very many of the most relevant examples of such medical case histories that are relevant to the question of whether the human mind is the source of the mind and whether the human mind is the storage place of human memories. One of those sites is the very site you are reading.  In my series of posts labeled "High Mental Function Despite Large Brain Damage," which you can read here, I describe many of the most important case histories that are  relevant to the question of whether the human brain is the source of the mind (keep pressing Older Posts at the bottom right to read the whole series). Now let me provide another such case, one I learned about from searching old newspaper articles for a use of the phrase "half a brain." The 1976 case is one that you can read about using the link here. Below are some excerpts from the newspaper article.

We read of a young man named Bruce Lipstadt who had a hemispherectomy operation when he was five years old, an operation that removed the left half of his brain.  Operations of that type are only done when someone is being plagued by very severe seizures, and the seizures cannot be controlled by medication.  The operation was done because as a young boy Bruce was suffering from 10 to 12 seizures a day. 

We are told that despite having the left half of his brain surgically removed, Bruce can ride a bike, swim and play sports. We are told that Bruce got an A grade (the best grade) in a course on statistics at a university. We are told Bruce's speech is normal. We are told that "although not a genius, Bruce has superior intelligence." We are told that Bruce works as a traffic controller, and that next spring he will get a degree in sociology from a university. 

The 1976 newspaper article here gives us some more details on Bruce Lipstadt. We read that his IQ tests showed his verbal IQ to be 126, well above the average IQ of 100. We read this:

A verbal IQ of 126 in a subject who had the left half of his brain removed is a result that would seem to "make mincemeat" out of claims that the brain is the source of the human mind. One of the accounts above mentions an authority named Sugar. The Bruce Lipstadt case seems to be the same one mentioned in the scientific paper here co-authored by Oscar Sugar MD, one entitled "Development of above normal language and intelligence 21 years after left hemispherectomy."

The newspaper article here tells of a film about a man who had the left half of his brain removed, but who (five months after the operation) could still "sing, distinguish colors, and pass simple tests of reading, writing and arithmetic."

At the 2:59 mark in the Youtube.com video here, we get the table below, which shows some impressive intellectual achievements in patients who underwent a hemispherectomy operation to remove half of their brains:

We have some stunning results. All of these people with half a brain had some college studies. Two had achieved a two-year Associate's Degree. One had achieved a Master's Degree. The top row tells whether the left or the right half of the brain was removed.  The two rightmost columns give details for people who had the left half of their brain removed, both of which had some college studies, and both of which were employed. 

At the 5:03 mark in the video, we have the chart below. It shows the IQ of 7 subjects who had a hemispherectomy operation to remove half of their brains. The dots in yellow are people who had left half of the brain removed. Each column represents a particular type of IQ. The first column is full IQ. The second column is verbal IQ. The third column is performance IQ, something that does tests involving non-verbal tasks and motor tasks, with speed of completion affecting the score. We see that one of the subjects who had the left half of his brain removed had above-average verbal IQ. 

At the 8:07 mark in the video, we have a chart showing that one of the left hemispherectomy patients (who had the left half of the brain removed) had a way-above-average 130 score on reading comprehension. 

At the link here, you can read the very interesting paper "AN ENORMOUS CEREBRAL TUMOUR" by William E. Conroy M.D. We read of a patient F. H. who was observed in 1889. The patient had an operation to remove the tumor, but died soon thereafter. 

On page 179 we read that an autopsy was performed, and that after the tumor was removed, the left half of the brain was all but gone, being only the size of the palm of a hand:

On page 180 we read that this "enormous" tumor in the left half of the brain produced almost no mental effects. We read that the boy was "intelligent" and "expressed himself well" and "read much with enjoyment" until his eyesight failed. We read that the mental faculties were "not seriously impaired."  We read this:

On page 16 of an 1899 book J. Sanderson Christison, M.D.  states this: "And when we find that individuals have filled the business and social functions of life in the ordinary way, who were either destitute of a corpus callosum (see page 65) or had but little more than half a brain (see page 62), it is evident that external features are not necessarily of fundamental significance." 

On page 47 Dr. Christison says this:

"Dr. E. W. Taylor reports a man, 36 years of age, with extensive destruction of the left frontal lobe of the brain, and yet, says Dr. Taylor: 'When I last saw him the whole impression was that of a clear-headed vigorous man of exceptional intellect, but neurasthenic. A few days before his death he was filling a responsible position, and making decisions of importance with accuracy and judgment.' "

On pages 58-59 Christison says this:

"Dr. Charles Phelps reports a man who died at the age of 25 years with a large abscess in the middle area of the left cerebral hemisphere, while a large proportion of both hemispheres was either softened or invaded with punctate hemorrhages. Yet Dr. Phelps reports that this man 'had absolute integrity of all his mental faculties and special senses without either having aberration or decadence, and was cheerful and slept well.' "

On the same page 59 Christison says this:

"Drs. J. J. Putnam and M. H. Richardson report a business-man, 30 years of age, whose entire left cerebral hemisphere (except the occipital lobe and the lower portions of the frontal and temporal lobes) was occupied by a diseased growth, 'which everywhere compressed the adjoining brain tissues and to a great extent destroyed them,'  and yet in this man 'no notable mental changes were observable.'  'His mind was clear and he read and understood with pleasure, and enjoyed the society of his family and friends,' and although 'he dragged his right leg he walked well, going to church and back half a mile off, and he drove his horse to town eight miles away, four days before his death.' "

On page 61 Dr. Christison says this:

"Dr. W. B. Haddon reports a man, 21 years of age, with an enormous tumor occupying the left cerebral hemisphere, and severely compressing adjacent structures. Yet, although he occasionally had an epileptic fit and stammered slightly from childhood, he had no paralysis. He was somewhat opinionated, but evinced no moral perversion. At the time of his death (in a fit) he was a clerk in the Steward's office of St. Thomas' Hospital, London, and a few days later he would have entered the government examination for a second grade certificate in perspective and drawing, branches in which he was pronounced by experts to be exceptionally proficient."

On page 62 Dr. Christison says this:

 "Andral reports a man who died at the age of 28 years with the whole of his right cerebral hemisphere so completely atrophied that its covering membrane (pia mater) formed a cyst in which there was not a trace of brain tissue. The floor of the cyst was formed by the optic thalamus, the corpus striatum, and the parts on a level with these two bodies. Yet, says Andral, this man  'had received a good education, had a good memory, and exhibited as much intelligence as most men' (19)."

She "Seemed Entirely Undamaged in Mental Capacity" After They Removed Half Her Brain

 Below is a news report that appeared in the November 10, 1933 edition of a newspaper called the Sedalia Democrat, a news report you can read here. 

In the story above we read this:

"Dr. Gardner removed the entire right half of the brain. The patient recognized friends immediately on recovering from  the anesthetic and seemed entirely undamaged in mental capacity."

The headline refers to Dr. Dandy.  The case of Dandy's patients is reported in the American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Jul., 1934), pages 500-503. We read this: 

"Dandy has completely removed the right cerebral hemisphere from eight patients. He has performed total extirpations of one or more lobes much oftener... There are tabulated below certain generalizations on the effects of removing the right hemisphere.... The operation was the complete extirpation of the right frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes peripheral to the corpus striatum. The weight of the tissue re moved varies, with the pathological conditions involved, from 250 to 584 grm [grams].Coherent conversation began within twenty-four hours after operation, and in one case on the afternoon of the same day. Later examinations showed no observable mental changes. The patients were perfectly oriented in respect of time, place, and person; their memory was unimpaired for immediate and remote events; conversation was always coherent; ability to read, write, compute, and learn new material was unaltered. Current events were followed with normal interest. There were no personality changes apparent; the patients were emotionally stable, without fears, delusions, hallucinations, expansive ideas or obsessions, and with a good sense of humor; they joked frequently. They showed a natural interest in their condition and future. They cooperated intelligently at all times throughout post-operative care and subsequent testing of function." 

How could the memory of patients be "unimpaired for immediate and remote events" if memories are stored in brains?

Here is a quote from the newspaper article you can read here:

"Three seven-year-old chil­dren. Albert has had half his dam­aged brain removed by surgeons. Charley has millions of dead cells in his brain but has responded to nonsurgical treatment. Billy has a nor­mal brain. Yet all three are equal in intelligence."

So Albert who had half his brain removed (probably to treat epilepsy) had an intelligence equal to Billy who had a normal brain. That's not what we would expect under "brains make minds" assumptions. 

In the AP newspaper article here, we read, "One man had the right front lobe of his brain removed, con­scious and answering questions all the while, with one needle in his face below the cheek bone, and three in the top side of his right foot."

Below we read a report by a doctor (Logan Clendening) who attended a conference of the American Medical Association. In the bottom right corner, we hear he heard about a young girl who had "one-half of her brain removed for epilepsy." We are not told about any problem that the girl suffered, but merely told that "she is able to conduct her life and affairs with considerable success." 

Below is a similar newspaper account you can read here. We read of "mental faculties entirely unimpaired," even though the patient (John Daly) had "the larger part of his brain removed by an operation."

More Old Newspaper Stories Relevant to Whether Brains Make Minds

The Chronicling America web site allows you to make a full-text search of many decades of American newspapers. Below are some interesting clips from old newspaper articles, all having some relevance to whether the human brain makes the human mind.  

The news account below is from 1957:

You can read the report here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1957-09-02/ed-1/seq-3/

The account below is from the nineteenth century. We hear of a man who apparently did not suffer intellectual damage from losing half of his brain. 

You can read the 1876 account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84038123/1876-01-21/ed-1/seq-1/

The newspaper account below is from 1898:

You can read the story here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1898-07-03/ed-1/seq-19/

Using an OCR feature of the page above, I get this quotation of its middle part:

"In instances in which it was discovered after death that the connecting bridge between the hemispheres

was entirely wanting, neither derangement in intellect was observed, nor any other abnormality of life in the way of movement or sensation. Thus, in the notable case of Bichat, one of the foremost anatomists of his day, one lobe of his brain was found markedly smaller than the other. He was, in fact, deficient in one-half of his brain, and yet his mental and physical life was in its way notably of a high order. In another case, reported by Cruveilhier, a man died in the hospital at the age of 42 years from heart disease. He exhibited no lack of intelligence, yet after his death it was discovered that his left brain was practically destroyed and replaced by a watery substance. Another case, reported by Andral, was of a man who died at the age of 2S. He had suffered from a fall when three years old, and as a result was paralyzed on his left side. The right half of his brain had practically disappeared, so that the parts below this half constituted the floor for an empty space. Andral says of this

man that he 'had received a good education, and had profited by it; he had a good. memory; his speech was free and easy; his intelligence was such as we should expect to find in an ordinary man.' "

Below is a news story from 1938. We read of a girl "with half a brain" who carried on in a "remarkably satisfactory manner":

You can read the news story here:

https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm%3A1837343?solr%

We have below a report that is not at all what we would expect if the brain produces the mind.  The report is of patients who underwent surgeries that surgically severed the two halves of their brain. But instead of this producing a drastically different mind, or two minds, we have apparently minimal effects:

You can read the story using this link:

https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm%3A2307311?solr%5Bquery

The 1905 newspaper account below tells us of a man who seemed to have suffered little mental damage from losing most of his brain:

You can read the account here:

https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=teh19051201-01.1.8&srpos=6&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-%22half+a+brain%22---------

Here is a news account from 1987 telling us of a big improvement in reading ability after half of a girl's brain was removed. 

You can read the full story here:

https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=jou19870907-01.1.4&srpos=3&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-%22half+her+brain%22---------

A fact contrary to all claims that brains make minds is the fact that very severe pain can be completely cancelled by the use of hypnosis. Below is a news story documenting the effect. 

On pages 27-28 of a book by Dr. James Esdaile he lists a host of dramatic painless surgeries he performed without using anesthesia, but only hypnosis on patients. The list includes about 20 amputations, and 200 removals of scrotal tumors ranging from 10 pounds in weight to more than 100 pounds in weight. Another book on this topic by Esdaile can be read here. 

In the following quote from a nineteenth century work, we learn of a great irony: that physicians took up a chemical method of anesthesia, one which would often kill people, rather than using hypnotic methods of anesthesia that were proving very safe and effective:

"In Dr. Brown Sequard's lectures upon 'Nervous Force,' delivered in Boston in 1874, he speaks of this form of anaesthesia as follows : 

'As regards the power of producing anaesthesia, it seems to me unfortunate that the discovery of ether was made just when it was. It was, as you well know, in 1846 or 1847 that the use of ether as an anaesthetic was begun. It started from this city (Boston). At that time in England, Dr. Forbes was trying to show from facts observed in England, and especially in India, from the practice of Dr. Esdaile, that something which was called Mesmerism, but which, after all, was nothing but a peculiar state of somnambulism induced in patients, gave to them the idea that they were deprived of feeling ; so that they were in reality under the influence of their imagination, and operations were performed that were quite painless. I say that it was a pity that ether was introduced just then, as it prevented the progress of our knowledge as to this method of producing anaesthesia. My friend Dr. Broca took it up in 1857-8 and pushed it very far; and for a time it was the fashion in Paris to have amputations performed after having been anaesthetized by the influence of Braidism or Hypnotism. A great many operations were performed in that way that were quite painless. But it was a process that was long and tedious, and surgeons were in a hurry and gave it up. I regret it very much, as there has never been a case of death from that method of producing anesthesia, while you well know that a great many cases of death have been produced by other methods.' "

He Had Half a Brain But "Superior Intelligence"

The failure of neuroscientists to adequately study minds is a very severe failure. You can get a PhD in neuroscience while making only a perfunctory study of human minds.  An examination of the courses required to get a Master's Degree in neuroscience will typically show that only one or two courses in psychology are required. Doing a neuroscience PhD dissertation typically involves some highly specialized research on some very narrow topic, research that does not require much in the way of additional study of human minds and the mental capabilities and mental experiences of humans.  The topic of human minds and human mental experiences is a topic of oceanic depth, requiring years of deep study for someone to get a good grasp of the full range of human mental states, human mental capabilities and human mental experiences. Very strangely, a typical neuroscientist is someone who will feel qualified to pontificate about what causes mental experiences, mental states and mental capabilities, even though he typically has done little to very deeply study mental experiences, mental states and mental capabilities.

Ask a neuroscientist to describe the best examples of high capacity and high accuracy in human memory recall, and you will be likely to get a shrug of the shoulders, or an answer that is wrong.  Ask a neuroscientist to describe the best examples of human performance in tests of extrasensory perception (ESP), and you will be likely to get a shrug of the shoulders, or an answer that is wrong. Ask a neuroscientist to describe the best examples of humans learning or memorizing things very quickly, and you will be likely to get an answer showing no study of such a topic. Ask a neuroscientist to describe the fastest examples of human calculation involving no use of any objects such as pencil, paper or blackboards, and you will likely get an answer that fails to describe the most impressive cases. 

Rather amazingly, it is also true that very many neuroscientists are not very deep and broad scholars of the topic of human brains. A typical neuroscientist may be able to tell you in very great detail about some narrow facet of human brains, and may be able to tell you in the greatest detail about how to use some machine that is used to study brains. But the same neuroscientist may have failed to properly study the topic of human brains in a way that involves learning about every relevant thing you could about human brains. Ask that neuroscientist to tell you what happens when you remove half of a human brain, and you may get an answer that is wrong. Ask that neuroscientist to tell you how reliably chemical synapses transmit nerve signals (action potentials), and you may get an answer that is wrong. Ask that neuroscientist to tell you how quickly a brain electrically shuts down when the heart stops (reaching a state called asystole), and you may get an answer that is wrong. 

Part of the job of properly studying brains is to study very thoroughly all of the most impressive cases of high mental performance despite very high brain damage. Relatively few neuroscientists show signs of having studied such a topic. In order to properly study such a topic, you must study unusual medical case histories.  Very many of the most important and relevant medical case histories are recorded in books, newspapers and magazines. But can you ever recall reading of a neuroscientist searching newspapers for unusual case histories in neuroscience? I can never recall reading of such activity by a neuroscientist. 

Luckily there are some web sites that contain very many of the most relevant examples of such medical case histories that are relevant to the question of whether the human mind is the source of the mind and whether the human mind is the storage place of human memories. One of those sites is the very site you are reading.  In my series of posts labeled "High Mental Function Despite Large Brain Damage," which you can read here, I describe many of the most important case histories that are  relevant to the question of whether the human brain is the source of the mind (keep pressing Older Posts at the bottom right to read the whole series). Now let me provide another such case, one I learned about from searching old newspaper articles for a use of the phrase "half a brain." The 1976 case is one that you can read about using the link here. Below are some excerpts from the newspaper article.

We read of a young man named Bruce Lipstadt who had a hemispherectomy operation when he was five years old, an operation that removed the left half of his brain.  Operations of that type are only done when someone is being plagued by very severe seizures, and the seizures cannot be controlled by medication.  The operation was done because as a young boy Bruce was suffering from 10 to 12 seizures a day. 

We are told that despite having the left half of his brain surgically removed, Bruce can ride a bike, swim and play sports. We are told that Bruce got an A grade (the best grade) in a course on statistics at a university. We are told Bruce's speech is normal. We are told that "although not a genius, Bruce has superior intelligence." We are told that Bruce works as a traffic controller, and that next spring he will get a degree in sociology from a university. 

The 1976 newspaper article here gives us some more details on Bruce Lipstadt. We read that his IQ tests showed his verbal IQ to be 126, well above the average IQ of 100. We read this:

A verbal IQ of 126 in a subject who had the left half of his brain removed is a result that would seem to "make mincemeat" out of claims that the brain is the source of the human mind. One of the accounts above mentions an authority named Sugar. The Bruce Lipstadt case seems to be the same one mentioned in the scientific paper here co-authored by Oscar Sugar MD, one entitled "Development of above normal language and intelligence 21 years after left hemispherectomy."

Below is a news account from 1937.

Even more dramatic cases of this type can be found by studying the cases of John Lorber, who reported above-average intelligence in quite a few subjects who had lost almost all of their brains due to disease. A scientific paper states this:

"[Lorber] described a woman with an extreme degree of hydrocephalus showing 'virtually no cerebral mantle' who had an IQ of 118, a girl aged 5 who had an IQ of 123 despite extreme hydrocephalus, a 7-year-old boy with gross hydrocephalus and an IQ of 128, another young adult with gross hydrocephalus and a verbal IQ of 144, and a nurse and an English teacher who both led normal lives despite gross hydrocephalus."

The newspaper account here tells us of a young girl who had the right half of her brain removed, and who can "speak clearly" after having had 80% of the right half of her brain removed.  The newspaper article here tells us more about the same girl. After describing the operation that removed almost all of half of her brain, the article states, "Many of her memory functions, such as her bilingual speech and comprehension skills, have remained intact, Friedman said."

The importance of such an observation can hardly be overemphasized. Bilingual speech (speaking in two languages) requires a massive amount of previous learned information. If the human brain stored memories, we should never expect bilingual speech to survive the removal of half of the brain. 

The article here tells us of Christina Santhouse had the right half of her brain removed in a hemispherectomy operation to stop seizures. We hear no mention of any loss of memory. We get a depiction of a 14-year-old child entering high school, just as a normal 14-year-old would do. 

The writer gives some creative but nonsensical explanations for the lack of any big mental effect from removing half of the brain. We are told the fairy tale story that neurons "haven't decided what they want to do when they grow up."  We are told the groundless claim that one side of the brain takes over the functions of the removed half. A much better explanation is that the functions attributed to brains were never actually produced by brains, so you can lose half a brain with relatively little effect. Your biggest laugh when reading the article is the writer's claim that "memory resides in both hemispheres of the brain, so there is little danger of losing it" when half of the brain is removed. This is as silly as claiming that you wrote your diary by filling up two thick diary books, so you won't be losing information if you burn one of those two thick diary books. 

A similar account can be read in the 1987 story here, where we learn of the preservation of learned knowledge and memories in Beth Usher, despite an operation removing the left half of her brain. 

The newspaper article here notes a case of a man who had the right half of his brain removed with "apparently no mental changes at all after the operation."

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.' "

She Didn't Seem to Need the Right Half of Her Brain, and Losing It Did Not Seem to Dim Her Memories

The 2021 paper "Preserved Cognition After Right Hemispherectomy" is another example of a case that should have been "the talk of the town" in the world of science, but which instead seems  to have received almost no attention from the press.  The paper by Mark Bowren, Jr,  Daniel Tranel and Aaron D. Boes tells us the fairly recent case of a woman who had almost the entire right half of her brain removed, but is apparently suffering very little cognitive damage from this removal. 

We read that the woman had a brain stroke at age 29, and that doctors treated her brain problem by removing almost all of the right half of her brain, in an operation called a hemispherectomy. We read that "In the days after surgery, she was described as alert, cooperative, and having normal language and interactions with her providers." We read no mention in the paper of a loss of acquired memories.  

The failure of scientists and doctors to study the exact memory effect of removing half of the brain is a major scandal of neuroscience. Whenever a person has a large portion of the brain removed, you have a great opportunity to test the hypothesis that memories are stored in the brain. This is because if it is true that human memories are stored in the brain, you should see some great loss of memories whenever a large chunk of the brain is removed.  But senselessly, neuroscientists and medical authorities seem to fail to test a loss of acquired memories after removal of large portions of the brain. 

Doing such a test would be quite easy. For example, a person could be given a test of the definition of 200 common words and could be given a multiple-choice test involving 200 commonly known facts; and such tests could be given both before and after the removal of the large amount of brain tissue. A sharp decrease in the score on such  tests would indicate that the person had lost much of the school-learned knowledge that he previously had. Also, a person could be asked to write a 1000-word autobiographical essay, both before and after the removal of the large amount of brain tissue. From the facts in such an essay written before the surgery, you could make a set of 25 or 35 questions and answers.  This set of questions and answers could be asked both before the surgery and after the surgery.  If it was found, for example, that the person given the brain surgery could no longer answer 10 of the autobiographical questions  that the person could answer before the surgery, this would be an indication that the brain surgery had caused the person to lose some of his episodic memories. 

Senselessly, doctors and neuroscientists fail to do tests like this before and after removing large portions of the brain.  Or, if they do such tests, they fail to publish them.  So we are left having to deduce how much of an effect the brain removal had on acquired memories, using other clues, and using the failure to report a loss of acquired memories and episodic memories as evidence that no great loss of such things occurred.  In the case of this woman, we can do that. The paper has failed to mention any loss of conceptual knowledge and has failed to mention any loss of episodic memories. From this we may infer  that there was no such loss.  

Also, the paper has stated this about the aftermath of the dramatic surgery in almost all of the right half of the brain was removed: " In the days after surgery, she was described as alert, cooperative, and having normal language and interactions with her providers."  The phrase "having normal language" is a very important indication that learned knowledge was preserved after almost all of the right half of the brain was removed.  Every time a person uses language in speech, that involves a use of acquired memories. Every single use of a particular word requires a memory of the definition of that word.  

Also we read that two months after the stroke, this patient CB had "intact expressive language and reading comprehension."  The paper does not tell us how many weeks after the stroke there occurred the removal of almost all the right half of the brain. But from the timeline given we know that this sentence refers to some time less than two months after the operation occurred.  Because you cannot learn a large fraction of a language in less than two months, we can presume that the patient had "intact expressive language and reading comprehension" directly after having had almost all of the right half of her brain removed, particularly given that we are told that the patient had "normal language" days after the operation. 

While the authorities involved failed to properly test for a loss of acquired knowledge and episodic memories, they did do a good job of testing the patient's cognitive skills at a time 5.3 and 7.8 years after the operation. They have given us the visual below, which neatly summarizes in a single visual the loss of brain tissue that occurred and the results of the cognitive tests:

As you can see from the visual above, the patient scored in the "Average" range for almost all of the 29 tests. In only two of the dozens of tests did the patient get an "Impaired" score: a test involving symbol search and a test involving copying figures.  We read this:

"Neuropsychological test performances (data collected 5.3 and 7.8 years after the onset of the stroke; figure)4 were notable for normal performance on most tests, including on most nonverbal tests, such as the Block Design test, the Matrix Reasoning test, the Visual Puzzles test, the Judgment of Line Orientation test, the Benton Visual Retention test, the Spatial Span test, and the Faces I and II tests. In addition, she performed within normal limits on several tests of executive functioning, including the Wisconsin Card Sorting test, part B of the Trail Making test, the Color-Word Interference test, and the Similarities test (a test of abstract verbal reasoning and comprehension of implied meanings). Regarding attention, she performed within normal limits on the Line Cancellation test, a test of hemispatial inattention (neglect), and there was no evidence of hemispatial inattention on other neuropsychological tests. Focused and complex attention were within normal limits on parts A and B of the Trail Making Test, respectively."

So how does this data fit in with the claim that your brain makes your mind? It doesn't.  The data defies such a claim.  The case also defies claims that the brain is the storage place of memories.  The paper has failed to mention any loss of acquired knowledge or episodic memories from the removal of half a brain, and has given us some indications that no big loss of that type occurred. 

A page describes a book by Antonio M. Battro, a book entitled "Half a Brain Is Enough" about a boy named Nico. The page states this: 

"Half a Brain is Enough is the extraordinary story of Nico, a three-year-old boy who was given a right hemispherectomy to control his severe intractable epilepsy. Antonio Battro, a distinguished neuroscientist and educationalist, describes his work with Nico over several years and explains how a boy with only half a brain has developed into a bright child with relatively minor physical and mental impairment. Eight years later, he runs and plays with only a slight limp. So far, there is no significant cognitive or affective disorder and it appears that Nico's so-called right-hemisphere skills--mathematics, visual arts, and music--have migrated to the left hemisphere. At school, he performs as a child of his age in arithmetic and music; only his draftsmanship and handwriting are poor for his age, but he has not lost his cognitive spatial ability. Battro and his colleagues have been studying and teaching Nico with computers and he is mastering written language with a word processor and is able to make good graphic designs with a computer. Nico performs well above average verbally, a left-brain skill."

You Would Never Guess From Her Videos That She Has No Frontal Lobes

In previous posts such as "Preservation of Mind and Memories After Removal of Half a Brain" and "Cases of High Mental Function Despite Large Brain Damage," I have discussed at great length quite a few cases of people whose minds or memories functioned well despite very heavy brain damage.  These included cases such as these:

• Dandy's patients: The case of Dandy's patients are reported in the American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Jul., 1934), pages 500-503. We read this: "Dandy has completely removed the right cerebral hemisphere from eight patients. He has performed total extirpations of one or more lobes much oftener... There are tabulated below certain generalizations on the effects of removing the right hemisphere.... The operation was the complete extirpation of the right frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes peripheral to the corpus striatum. The weight of the tissue re moved varies, with the pathological conditions involved, from 250 to 584 grm [grams].Coherent conversation began within twenty-four hours after operation, and in one case on the afternoon of the same day. Later examinations showed no observable mental changes. The patients were perfectly oriented in respect of time, place, and person; their memory was unimpaired for immediate and remote events; conversation was always coherent; ability to read, write, compute, and learn new material was unaltered. Current events were followed with normal interest. There were no personality changes apparent; the patients were emotionally stable, without fears, delusions, hallucinations, expansive ideas or obsessions, and with a good sense of humor; they joked frequently. They showed a natural interest in their condition and future. They cooperated intelligently at all times throughout post-operative care and subsequent testing of function." How could the memory of patients be "unimpaired for immediate and remote events" if memories are stored in brains?
• Patient P. G. Described in the 1966 paper "Long-term changes in intellect and behaviour after hemispherectomy," Patient   P.G. had an IQ of 128 before the right half of his brain was removed. After the right half of his brain was removed, he scored 142 on the same IQ test, improving his score by 14 points. The paper tells us that this man with half a brain “obtained a university diploma after operation” and “has a responsible administrative position with a local authority.” If your brain makes your mind, how could taking out half of someone's brain cause their IQ to increase by 14 points, with an end result so far above average?
• Patient D. W. Described in the 1966 paper "Long-term changes in intellect and behaviour after hemispherectomy," Patient D.W.  had an IQ of 97 before the left half of his brain was removed. After the left half of his brain was removed, he scored 100 on the same IQ test, improving his score by 3 points.
• The French civil servant. The case is discussed here in a Reuters story entitled “Man lives normal life with abnormal brain.” Inside a normal brain are tiny structures called lateral ventricles that hold brain fluid. In this man's case, the ventricles had swollen up like balloons, until they filled almost all of the man's brain. When the 44-year-old man was a child, doctor's had noticed the swelling, and had tried to treat it. Apparently the swelling had progressed since childhood. The man was left with what the Reuters story calls “little more than a sheet of actual brain tissue.”  But this same man, with almost no functioning brain, had been working as a French civil servant, and had his IQ tested to be 75, higher than that of a mentally retarded person. The Reuters story says: “A man with an unusually tiny brain managed to live an entirely normal life despite his condition, caused by a fluid buildup in his skull.” The case was written up in the British medical journal The Lancet in a paper entitled “Brain of a white-collar worker.” It is as if the authors tried to make these facts be noticed by as few as possible, by giving their story the dullest title they could. 
• Christina Santhouse. In an article in the New Yorker magazine, we are told of a Christina Santhouse who had the right half of her brain surgically removed: “When I met her, she had taken her S.A.T.s and just finished high school, coming in seventy-sixth in a class of two hundred and twenty-five.”
• Beth Usher. Beth was mentioned in an article in the LA Times, which stated this: "How is it that 8-year-old Beth Usher of Storrs, Conn., can lose her left hemisphere, yet retain her large repertoire of knock-knock jokes? Beth’s memories survived not just the loss of brain tissue, but also the 32 days that she spent in a coma, the result of some brain stem swelling that occurred in response to the trauma of surgery. Shortly after Beth regained consciousness, her father began quizzing her about people and places from her past. Brian Usher didn’t get very far. 'Dad,' Beth interrupted, with a trace of impatience. 'I remember everything.'" Of course, there's a very easy answer to the question asked: the answer that memories are not actually stored in the human brain. 
• Borgstein and Grootendorst's 7-Year-Old. In 2002 in The Lancet these two published a paper "Half a Brain." They reported this on the child who had the left half of her brain surgically removed: "Though the dominant hemisphere was removed, with its language centres and the motor control for the left side of her body, the child is fully bilingual in Turkish and Dutch, while even her hemiplegia has partially recovered and is only noticeable by a slight spasticity of her left arm and leg. She leads an otherwise normal life."
• The Johns Hopkins 58 hemispherectomy patients. In a scientific paper ("Why Would You Remove Half a Brain? The Outcome of 58 Children After Hemispherectomy −−The Johns Hopkins Experience: 1968 to 1996") we read about surgeons at Johns Hopkins Medical School who performed fifty-eight hemispherectomy operations on children over a thirty-year period. At least eleven had the left half of the brain removed; and more had the right half removed. The paper states this: 
  "Despite removal of one hemisphere [i.e. one half of the brain], the intellect of all but one of the children seems either unchanged or improved....It is tempting to speculate, that the continuous electrical activity of these severely dysfunctional hemispheres interferes with the function of the other, more normal hemisphere. This might explain why motor function improves after hemispherectomy and why language recovers after removal of the dysfunctional left hemisphere, but does not seem to fully transfer before surgery. Perhaps it also partially explains intellectual improvement in these children after removal of half of the cortex. We are awed by the apparent retention of memory after removal of half of the brain, either half, and by the retention of the child’s personality and sense of humor."  An appropriate response to such observations would be not mere awe, but the questioning or discarding of belief dogmas such as the dogma that brains store memories (which cannot be found by microscopically inspecting brain tissue). 
• Kim Peek.  Kim Peek suffered from a lack of a corpus callosum, the bundle of fibers that connect the two hemispheres of the brain. Instead of this resulting in two minds in a single body (as we would expect from the "brains make minds" dogma), the result was a single mind and personality with an exceptional memory and astonishing calculation abilities. A newspaper report said Peek could accurately tell the contents of 12,000 books he had read, and the wikipedia article on him says he could "remember almost everything he had read." He could quickly tell strangers which day of the week they were born when they merely told him their birthdays. 
• Martel's boy. In a scientific paper ("Discrepancy Between Cerebral Structure and Cognitive Functioning") we read of a case of a boy who was "mentally unimpaired" until death (despite progressive loss of the senses), and who was found in an autopsy to have almost no brain. We read this: "Martel (1823) described a boy who died at the age of 10. During the first years of his life, he seemed healthy, but eventually, his health deteriorated considerably. He had severe headaches, gradually lost all his senses except hearing, developed fits, and became confined to his bed, but he nevertheless seemed mentally unimpaired until his death. His head appeared enlarged, and upon autopsy, apart from 'residues of meninges,' 'no trace of a brain' was found inside the skull (Martel, 1823, p. 20)." 
• John Lorber's patients. Lorber was a physician who had patients who lost the great majority of their brain due to a disease that replaces brain tissue with a watery fluid. Lorber was astounded to find that many of the patients had above-average intelligence, including a patient that had almost no brain but still had an IQ of 144. His patients are discussed here. 
• Masdeu's 44-year old. In the paper "Ventricular Wall Granulations and Draining of Cerebrospinal Fluid in Chronic Giant Hydrocephalus," Joseph C. Masdeu MD and others report a case of a 44-year-old woman with a huge fluid-filled hole in her brain, one that seemed to have replaced most of the tissue in her brain (judging from the photos in the paper). The paper reports the woman had an IQ of 98, worked as an administrator for a government agency, and could speak seven languages. 
• Egnor's Katie. In an article Michael Egnor MD tells of a patient he had named Katie who only "had a third of the brain that her sister had," her fraternal twin. Egnor tells us that Katie "sat and talked and walked earlier than her sister," "made the honor roll," and "will soon graduate high school."
• The Birjand Cyst patient:  This patient's case is reported in the paper "Giant Brain Hydatid Cyst in an Adult: A New Case Report." We are shown a photo of a giant hole in the patient's brain. We are told "The patient only complained of headache in the last two weeks and had no symptoms of visual or speech impairment." We are told the patient had no psychological problems. Surgery removed a fist-sized brain cyst that was 90 millimeters long and 40 millimeters wide. No mention is made of any mental or memory problem. 
• The 500 gram cyst girl. This patient's case is reported in the paper "Primary Giant Cerebral Hydatid Cyst in an 8-year-old Girl." Doctor's discovered a giant brain cyst of 500 grams measuring 20 cm × 15 cm × 12 cm, and they said "in our search this is the largest brain hydrated cyst in the literature." This was probably more than half the size of her brain, since the average adult female brain is about 1200 grams, and since an 8-year-old female would have a brain of less than 1000 grams. Despite having so large a brain cyst there was "no history of neurological deficits" and "no changes in behavior." A month after the removal of the cyst, the patient is described as "vitally stable, thriving well, no complaints, no neurological deficits, and with the normal neurological examination." No mention is made of any mental or memory problem. 
  
• The asymptomatic man with a giant brain cyst. This patient's case is reported in the paper "Asymptomatic giant arachnoidal cyst." We read of "a 39-year-old right-handed man, with a high-school education, good social and job functioning, and good command of three foreign languages (English, Spanish, and, in part, Arabic), had a 3-year history of mild migraine without aura." We are told that "neurologic examination and standardized cognitive assessment revealed normal findings." The man was found to have a giant cyst "occupying the anterior two thirds of the left hemisphere." We see a photo showing a huge hole in the person's brain, so big that it took about one third of the person's brain mass. How could you lose one third of your brain and have no symptoms, if a person's brain makes his mind? 
• Alex, who did not start speaking until the left half of his brain was removed. A scientific paper describing the case says that Alex “failed to develop speech throughout early boyhood.” He could apparently say only one word (“mumma”) before his operation to cure epilepsy seizures. But then following a hemispherectomy (also called a hemidecortication) in which half of his brain was removed at age 8.5, “and withdrawal of anticonvulsants when he was more than 9 years old, Alex suddenly began to acquire speech.” We are told, “His most recent scores on tests of receptive and expressive language place him at an age equivalent of 8–10 years,” and that by age 10 he could “converse with copious and appropriate speech, involving some fairly long words.” Astonishingly, the boy who could not speak with a full brain could speak well after half of his brain was removed. The half of the brain removed was the left half – the very half that scientists tell us is the half that has more to do with language than the right half. 
• The honors student (IQ=126) with only 3% to 10% of a brain. In the scientific paper "Long-Term Memory: Scaling of Information to Brain Size" by Donald R. Forsdyke of Queens University in Canada, he quotes the physician John Lorber on an honors student with an IQ of 126: "Instead of the normal 4.5 centimetre thickness of brain tissue between the ventricles and the cortical surface, there was just a thin layer of mantle measuring a millimeter or so. The cranium is filled mainly with cerebrospinal fluid. … I can’t say whether the mathematics student has a brain weighing 50 grams or 150 grams, but it’s clear that it is nowhere near the normal 1.5 kilograms." Forsdyke notes two similar cases in more recent years, one from France and another from Brazil.  Forsdyke says, "Three independent studies agree that there are, among us, people leading normal lives with approximately 5 % of the quantity of brain tissue found in others."
• The patient of Smith and Sugar. In their paper "Development of above normal language and intelligence 21 years after left hemispherectomy," Smith and Sugar state that "Neuropsychologic follow-up studies of a 5-year-old boy who had left hemispherectomy for seizures showed that he had developed superior language and intellectual abilities." This was a boy who had the left half of his brain removed, but who ended up with "superior language and intellectual abilities."
• Patient B.M. Patient B.M. had the right half of her brain removed, in an operation called a right hemispherectomy. She  had difficulty recognizing faces, a problem called prosopagnosia. But according to a paper on her, her "intellectual and cognitive functions were otherwise normal or only slightly impaired," despite the loss of half of her brain. 
• Brown and Vahidassr's Case: The case was reported by these two in a paper with the misleading title "The Man Who Lost (Part) of His Mind." The paper discusses an 84-year-old without  mentioning any mental problems at all, conflicting with their title. The abnormality they report is that man had lost almost half of his brain, with an air cavity replacing the lost tissue. Despite this loss, no cognitive difficulty is reported, and we hear that except for some muscle weakness "there was no confusion, facial weakness, visual or speech disturbance, and he was feeling otherwise well," and that he was "independent with physical activities of daily living."
• Patient HS4. This patient is discussed in the paper "Intrinsic Functional Connectivity of the Brain in Adults with a Single Cerebral Hemisphere.'" The paper discusses attempts to measure brain connectivity in patients who had half of their brain removed to treat very frequent seizures. The half-brain patient with the highest intelligence was patient HS4, with an IQ of 99 (according to the Supplemental Information of the paper). But this very patient had the smallest brain of the six half-brain patients. This patient HS4 had an average brain connectivity score of only .30, which is the same as one of the group of controls with normal brains, and less than the brain connectivity of the other group of controls with normal brains.   So the smartest person with half a brain (who had an IQ of 99) did not at all have any greater brain connectivity that can explain his normal intelligence with only half a brain. How can this subject HS4 have had a normal intelligence with only half a brain?  In this case, favorable brain rewiring or greater brain connectivity cannot explain the result.  

The half brain of subject HS4, IQ of 99, average brain wiring

I recently learned of another case of this type. The case is particularly interesting because it helps to discredit the claim that the frontal lobes of the brain are necessary for language and thinking.  The case is reported in the paper "Early bilateral and massive compromise of the frontal lobes."  We read about an amazing case of an 8-year-old girl with good mental skills despite having basically no frontal lobes of the brain. We see an MRI scan showing a gigantic black empty region in the brain corresponding to missing frontal lobes.

We read that a brain scan at age three revealed this:

"GC's first report of frontal compromise at age three. MRI scans revealed no structures in the frontal lobe, covered with cerebrospinal fluid. Weighed-T1 MRI scans showed no recognizable frontal structures, expect for a small portion of the ventral frontal cortex. The mesencephalon, pons, and medulla oblongata were present, and so were all other lobes and the cerebellum."  

We read that a brain scan of the girl at age 8 showed basically the same results, with at most only a tiny of the frontal lobes existing. 

Under a heading of "Neurological and neuropsychological assessment" we read that "she could describe sensory and affective experiences, and reacted to environmental events with apparent emotional and cognitive congruency (e.g., pleasure, tiredness, playfulness, anger, and basic symbolization  Supplementary Video 1, Supplementary Video 2)." The links take us to a page of videos of the young girl. We see her seeming to act pretty much like a normal girl of her age. I recommend watching all of the short videos on the page. The girl with basically no frontal lobes stands, dances, seems to speak normally, and responds to requests to touch parts of her body, and show how she brushes her teeth. The person asking the questions to the girl speaks very rapidly, but the girl seems to have no difficulty understanding the questions, and the girl makes appropriate verbal and manual responses.  Asked to point to the questioner's thumb, the girl points to the right spot. Asked to point to the girl's eyes, the girl points to the right spot. Asked where she would wear a pair of glasses, the girl points to her eyes. Asked where she would wear a pair of shoes, she points to her feet. The girl is able to distinguish between herself and a fantasy character (Minnie Mouse), and says that she is not Minnie (Video 9). 

We hear in the text of the paper vague mentions about various types of "deficits," but we seem to get very little in the way of  specifics. None of the nine videos of the girl seem to show any signs of cognitive deficits. 

We see below a visual of the girl's brain, from Supplementary Video 11:

A much better title for the paper would have been "Good cognitive performance despite loss of the frontal lobes."  Why is that when neuroscientists discover cases that contradict their dogmas, that they report such cases using titles that fail to alert us of the important finding in conflict with their dogmas? It's as if they were trying as hard as possible to make such "inconvenient truths" as hard to discover as possible. Also, the authors have used language in their abstract that fails to alert any readers of this important case. Rather than referring to an absence of the frontal lobes (as they do in the body of the paper), they merely refer in the abstract to "nearly complete affectation of bilateral frontal structures," as if they were trying to prevent people from discovering this case that should shock a neuroscientist to the core. 

Our neuroscientists keep telling us that higher cognitive capabilities such as abstract thought and self-consciousness come from the frontal lobes of the brain. The case reported above shows that such a claim is untrue.  For many other reasons for rejecting such a claim, read my post here.  Referring to removal of brain tissue (resection), the paper here states that " intellectual or memory decrements are seldom found after frontal resections."