But hold on...neuroscientists are half way there. The operation known as hemispherectomy—where half the brain is removed—sounds too radical to ever consider, much less perform. In the last century, however, surgeons have performed it hundreds of times for disorders uncontrollable in any other way. Unbelievably, the surgery has no apparent effect on personality or memory. |
Today, neurosurgeons have performed the operation on children as young as three months old. Astonishingly, memory and personality develop normally.
- A recent study at Hopkins found that 86 percent of the 111 children who underwent hemispherectomy between 1975 and 2001 are showing normal personality development and are either seizure-free or have nondisabling seizures that require no medication.
John Freeman, Johns Hopkins neurologist, explains that the patients who still suffer seizures usually have congenital defects or developmental abnormalities, where brain damage is often not confined to just one hemisphere.
He quips: | You can't take more than half. If you take the whole thing, you've got a problem. |
I find this so curious because the brain is held up by scientific and religious theorists alike as to being the center of thinking and consciousness, the determinante of personality, the home of the soul. Yet, brain surgeons are removing half of it without altering the thinking process or personality!
For more information, see Scientific American Strange but True or Epilepsy and Functional Hemispherectomy.