Unusually "tiny" brain found in civil servant

They FOUND the brain of a public servant? That in itself is an achievement!
 
Hey. I work for the government.

Of course, in Canberra, that statement doesn't carrry the same weight it does elsewhere. 65% of Canberra works for the government.
 
I've been trying to find the kid who was shot by a gang member in the head, and lost most of his brain and a good deal of skull. Seeing him on camera made it look like good CGI :(

Any ideas? I think he might have been on the doco Robinson saw.
 
CFLarsen said:
There's the next POTUS. In fact, he is overqualified...
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So, there's three surgeons sitting around one evening having a drink and telling stories. The first one tells how he fixed up a woman after a bad car accident and fire. He did the reconstructive surgery on her, and she went on to become Miss America. The second tells about how he put a guys hands back on after a terrible accident with a saw. The guy went on to become a concert pianist.

The third surgeon just shook his head. "Amateurs, both of you. Some years ago, a cowboy got high on whiskey and cocaine then went horseback riding. A train hit him, and all I had to work with was a cowboy hat and a horse's ass. He went on to become the President of the United States of America."
 
No one seems to be interested in comparing this "tiny-brained" person with humans of other ages, or with primates such as apes etc.
 
JJM 777 said:
No one seems to be interested in comparing this "tiny-brained" person with humans of other ages, or with primates such as apes etc.
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I don't know if this helps or not, JJM 777. The bottom two images are MRIs of normal brains while the four-some above shows the man's abnormal brain. I tried to find normal images that were similarly oriented to his. Compare the first normal image to the top left abnormal and the 2nd normal image to the bottom left abnormal. What is labeled "LV" in the abnormal images corresponds with the structure labeled "13" in the normal ones. That is how much smaller the fluid-filled ventricles should be. It's not exact, but it gives you the idea.

I'm afraid that I don't know how his compares volume-wise to a normal brain or an ape's. Perhaps there is an article available with that information. I hoped that this would give at least a reference to show just how unusual his brain is.
 
JJM 777 said:
No one seems to be interested in comparing this "tiny-brained" person with humans of other ages, or with primates such as apes etc.
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What would that accomplish? This isn't an infant or an ape we're talking about; it's an adult human with most of his brain missing. The important thing is to compare his brain with those of typical adult humans; from that we can infer interesting things about the structure and plasticity of the brain.
 
Evolutionists usually rate modern and ancient primates according to their brain volume.

This kinda pulls the carpet from under such comparison, if a human brain less than half the size of ape's brain is still a multi-talented genius compared to any smartest ape.

It's the quality then, not the quantity.
 
Ah, I see what you're getting at. Yes, that is a very interesting point. Certainly "quality" or structure or something is playing a significant role here. I wouldn't say it pulls the carpet out from under those comparisons, but it does highlight that a naive comparison of brain size doesn't say all there is to say about intelligence and function. (There are plenty of animals with brains larger than humans, after all.)

This is also being discussed over at the Skeptics Guide to the Universe forum, so hopefully Steven Novella (who's a neurologist) will pick it up and talk about it next week.
 
JJM 777 said:
Evolutionists usually rate modern and ancient primates according to their brain volume.

This kinda pulls the carpet from under such comparison, if a human brain less than half the size of ape's brain is still a multi-talented genius compared to any smartest ape.

It's the quality then, not the quantity.
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I don't think the argument is quite that straightforward.

When comparing species you are comparing average brain volumes and correlating them (or proposing a correlation) with average intelligence. That doesn't imply or require that intelligence correlate with brain size among individuals within a species. What explains the variation between two groups needn't explain variation within either group and vice versa.

More trivially, this is just one datum. I suspect most people who lose similar amounts of brain material suffer significant loss of function - it will depend on which bits are lost. In order to have the vital 10% (say) most brains also have less vital 90%. Every now and then a brain will lose 80% (say) of its material without losing the vital 10%, but mostly 80% loss takes out something vital.
 
Beausoleil said:
I suspect most people who lose similar amounts of brain material suffer significant loss of function
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Naturally, but this is because they would lose "memory slots" occupied with necessary information, which is lost when the said brain part is lost.

The tiny-brained man in question never "lost" anything, at least not so rapidly that the information could not have been stored or moved elsewhere.

I would be interested to hear about animals whose brain is larger than that of humans. I always believed that brain size = intellectual level. My worldview has been shattered to pieces.
 
JJM 777 said:
Naturally, but this is because they would lose "memory slots" occupied with necessary information, which is lost when the said brain part is lost.

The tiny-brained man in question never "lost" anything, at least not so rapidly that the information could not have been stored or moved elsewhere.

I would be interested to hear about animals whose brain is larger than that of humans. I always believed that brain size = intellectual level. My worldview has been shattered to pieces.
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Humans are not actually exceptional either in terms of absolute brain size or brain to body ratio. The brain of the blue whale is much bigger than the human brain. Mice have a bigger brain in relation to their body size. However, in general there is a consistent relationship between body size and brain size in mammals. It is not a linear relationship as brain size increases more slowly than body size so that large mammals will generally have smaller brain to body ratios than small ones. Humans are a definite out lier in respect to this relationship. Our brain is about 7 times bigger than what would be expected for a mammal our size.
 
JJM 777 said:
Naturally, but this is because they would lose "memory slots" occupied with necessary information, which is lost when the said brain part is lost.
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Not just information, but function. The brain does a lot more than store information.

The tiny-brained man in question never "lost" anything, at least not so rapidly that the information could not have been stored or moved elsewhere.
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Yes, that's exactly right.

I would be interested to hear about animals whose brain is larger than that of humans. I always believed that brain size = intellectual level. My worldview has been shattered to pieces.
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Some species of dolphin have brains larger than humans. Elephants and whales can have brains several times larger than the average human brain. Walruses also have brains in the human range, though not quite as large as the average adult.

A bit of digging turned up this handy chart.
 
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