The Woman With a Hole in Her Brain

An article from New Scientist, called "Woman of 24 Found to Have No Cerebellum in Her Brain," describes the woman mentioned in the title and how her complete lack of a cerebellum- the center of language and motor control- affect her life. Surprisingly, this has relatively little effect on her. Although it took the woman until the age of six to learn to speak coherently, and couldn't walk until age seven, she seems to have very few lasting effects, other than moderate issues with motor control, such as having difficulty walking steadily. This was quite surprising to me, since the cerebellum has such an important role. It does make sense, however; when I was first learning about the structures of the brain, I wondered why there were so many parts that had overlapping functions, and those redundancies would be useful in situations like this one.

I also researched how a missing thalamus would affect someone. Hypothetically, that person would have little or no sensation, as the thalamus both controls sensation and connects other parts of the brain which are also involved in sensory perception. However, there is a man reported to be missing around fifty to seventy-five percent of his brain. This is reportedly due to the slow nature of his brain degeneration which allowed other structures to take over for the missing ones. This raises the question: could the functions of the thalamus be taken on by other structures of the brain? The truth is, we don't know.