Unusually "tiny" brain found in civil servant

No, it really is missing. What brain tissue there is has been "compressed" in the sense that the buildup of fluid has gradually pushed it out of the way, but not in the sense that a full normal brain has been squashed into a fraction of the space. That would be instantly fatal.
 
It happened slow enough, and early enough, that his brain was nonfatally compressed. It's all still there, just the connections are a bit rearranged due to space.

Certainly that much fluid pumped into a normal adult brain would be instantly fatal, but so would removing that much tissue. His brain developed under the flooded conditions, but nothing was 'lost' in the sense that it's missing.

edit: had problems posting, hopefully I won't doublepost.
 
They keep talking about him in past tense in some of the reports. Is he dead now? Obviously enough matter was there, and connected properly to keep him going. His IQ was low. He had a lot of the cortex still present, and that is key. Where is his hypothalamus though? Must something in there somewhere...

The brain itself, meaning the grey matter and white matter, was completely crushed against the sides of the skull," Dr. Lionel Feuillet told AFP.

Subsequent tests have revealed that the man has an IQ of 75, with a verbal IQ of 84 and performance IQ of 70. The bulk of people in society have a minimum IQ of 85.
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I thought the average IQ was 100-110? The minimum in the "bulk" is 85, and I have a brother who tested around 80.

Schiavo only had a brainstem, and couldn't even see or feel anything.
 
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Eos of the Eons said:
They keep talking about him in past tense in some of the reports. Is he dead now? Obviously enough matter was there, and connected properly to keep him going. His IQ was low. He had a lot of the cortex still present, and that is key. Where is his hypothalamus though? Must something in there somewhere...

I thought the average IQ was 100-110? The minimum in the "bulk" is 85, and I have a brother who tested around 80.

Schiavo only had a brainstem, and couldn't even see or feel anything.
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Yes, she couldn't even swallow. That's really damaged. I wonder why the religious people didn't want to free her to go to her "happily ever after" earlier?

I imagine that the guy had a lot of his brain matter squashed the way a woman who is very pregnant gets her organs squashed... it looks like he had the stem and the reptilian portion of the brain fully functional and most of the limbic system-- it was the higher centers of the brain that were missing and squashed... they factor in more abstract thought processes, executive decision making, artistic expression, language, pattern recognition, etc. They are less essential to survival than the portions he had left. But they are very essential for the stuff that makes us "human" or different from other animals.

What did the guy die of?
 
the people thinking that schaivo would recover arent too savvy with biology or science and wouldnt understand the difference between the two cases. the dumbest thing i heard was from someone saying maybe in the future they could do a brain transplant-ya, rly- she noted beforehand that she 'wasnt a brain doctor or anything' as if that wasnt extremely obvious based on her statements.
 
Silly Green Monkey said:
It happened slow enough, and early enough, that his brain was nonfatally compressed. It's all still there, just the connections are a bit rearranged due to space.
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In what sense is it still there? In terms of the number of neurons? No. In terms of volume? Obviously not. In terms of mass? No. In terms of function? Sort of.
 
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