• Question: can you lose any part of your brain and still live?

    Asked by bigpackage to Fiona, Jane, Joanna, Michelle, William on 18 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by andyyyyy.
    • Photo: Michelle Murphy

      Michelle Murphy answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      yes in some cases doctors can take bits out and the person can live but there are lots of risks like stroke, paralysis, meningitis and lots of other things

    • Photo: Joanna Brooks

      Joanna Brooks answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Hello! Yes, in theory you can lose a part of your brain and still live. However, it largely depends on what part you lose and how severe the damage is to the surrounding areas of the brain. Pineas Gage was a man who was in an accident and ended up with an iron rod (about 6 kilograms in weight) going through his head. Where the iron rod went through his head it destroyed all parts of brain in the way – he still lived but he was left with quite strange behavioural problems – look it up online it’s a very interesting case! There are some old photos too.

    • Photo: Jane Henry

      Jane Henry answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Yes, some people with very bad epilepsy have part of their brain destroyed because it gives them too many fits. Strokes can destroy parts of the brain. Generally when you lose some brain the brain tries to rewire itself so other bits of the brain can take over the functions previously undertaken elsewhere. This is easier when young. It can take stroke victims many years to recover comprehension eg talking and motor eg walking skills. People with only half a brain – one hemisphere – have survived happily.

    • Photo: Fiona Randall

      Fiona Randall answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      You can lose some bits of your brain and be perfectly fine afterwards-it depends which brain area it is. One treatment for certain types of epilepsy is to take out the bit of the brain causing the epilepsy and patients can lead a perfectly healthy life afterwards. But some bits of your brain are essential and you’d have a sad time without them.

    • Photo: William Davies

      William Davies answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      The brain is split into two halves (hemispheres), and most functions are duplicated across the two hemispheres. This means that people who have lost almost one half of their brain (due to illness, injury etc) are still able to function relatively normally. People with persistent epilepsy often have quite large portions of the temporal lobe removed to prevent their fits

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