#brain accident

[mwittier]

Last November, I fell from a ladder and cracked my skull, had a traumatic brain injury, broke several vertebrae. I have recovered, and except for losing my sense of smell and some of my sense of taste, I’m actually doing really well, not even considering I started out unconscious, then unable to walk, and with no memory of the accident.

Yesterday, I got this text, out of the blue:

I laughed really hard and said out loud, “Wow, you guys are talking to the wrong people. You need to talk to some of the fools doing real damage in Minnesota right now.”

[mkupcha]

Brain Plasticity

Brain Plasticity

Brain plasticity is the ability for parts of the brain to gain new abilities because parts of the brain were lost. An example of this would be if part of the frontal lobe was lost so a person loses the ability to speak, then over time they regain this ability. This occurs when brain surgery is done and part of the brain is removed due to a tumor or to fix epilepsy. A procedure where this occurs is commonly done with children because their brain is still developing and growing so it is easier for the brain to regrow and develop new abilities.

A possible case study for this concept would be the tale of Phineas Gage. He is a man who had part of his frontal lobe blown out via a large steel pole to the head. After this his personality changed and he seemed to lose the ability to understand and predict consequences. This made him lose his job and many friends, but after a while he gained his personality back and his other symptoms decreased according to his family. This regaining of abilities suggest that his brain had plasticity and parts of his brain regained abilities from part of the brain that was destroyed in his accident.