The man with no brain?

In the spring of 1979 a 26 year old student at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom walked into the university doctor's office with complaints of a cold.

The doctor on staff noticed that the student, who held a first-class honours degree in mathematics, was rather normal except he had a slightly larger than average head. Curious, the doctor sent the student to James Lorber who was part of a world-leading spinal surgery team at Sheffield Children's Hospital.

What Dr. Lorber found was almost unbelievable!

The student, with a reported IQ of 126 had no signs of any mental deficiency. Yet, when Dr. Lorber X-rayed the student's head he discovered he had almost no brain tissue to speak of. His head was filled with fluid. What little brain matter he had was crushed against his spinal cord, a measly few millimeters thick rather than the typical CENTI-meters.

This condition is called hydrocephalus. It results when cerebral fluid expands and fills the brain causing the cortex to be squashed against the inside of the skull.

There have been many other reported cases where normal functioning people have been found to have virtually no brain matter.

In this particular case Lorber calculated the man's entire brain weighed about 100 grams compared to the average adult brain weighing 1500 grams. 100 grams is little more than the average weight of a dog's brain and this from an honours student in mathematics!

Let's pause and think about this for a moment. How many dogs do you know who have an honours degree in mathematics? Can't think of any? Neither can I. How was the student capable of functioning on the level that he was?

Lorber asked himself a similar question and it begged him to wonder whether the brain was even necessary at all. In 1980 the journal Science headlined with the discovery and the rest is history.