Dandy Walker
About 1 in 25,000 people (mostly females) are born with Dandy-Walker Syndrome. It is a congenital brain defect that consists partly of the enlargement of a ventricle containing cerebrospinal fluid.This "defect" generally is associated with slow development and most people who have this problem do not ever get to live normal lives. Many die quite young.
A Normal Brain
This is an MRI of a normal brain. Notice the brain part. It fills up most of the skull.
The French Brain
This is where the surprise comes in. A frenchman was born with Dandy Walker Syndrome, received a small shunt to drain the excess brain fluid as a small child, and went on to live a normal life. He's now age 44 and a civil servant. He is married, and has 2 children. His IQ is below average, but he is quite far from being considered mentally retarded. This is an MRI of his brain. Notice the missing brain part. The fluid filled ventrical expanded so much that he was barely able to develop a brain at all.
So there you have it
Apparently, you don't need much of a brain at all to keep going. I grew up believing that your brain was your most critical organ - that without a brain you couldn't do the basic things to survive - like breathe, eat, walk, or even reason. This man's brain is decidedly smaller than what I would have ever believed was possible for basic survival, let alone living a normal life.Remember - what you know about science today is wrong. Things that you grew up believing were absolute fact are going to be looked upon by your grandchildren as novel ideas that we gobbled up because we were simple and gullible.
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