• Question: if someone had a small skull that didnt grow, would it impede the brains growth, therefore lowering their intelligence, or would the brain become damaged?

    Asked by andyyyyy to Fiona, Joanna, Michelle, William on 23 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: William Davies

      William Davies answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      If your skull didn’t grow at all, you would probably die early on in development due to a build-up of pressure inside the skull and subsequent haemorrhaging. If your skull growth was only impaired slightly, I don’t think it would affect the brains function too much. A couple of years ago there was TV documentary about a woman whose skull was filled with a massive cyst with her brain squeezed into a small corner, and she seemed to function pretty normally.

    • Photo: Fiona Randall

      Fiona Randall answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      There are disorders where the skull doesn’t grow fast enough to accomodate the growing brain and this has serious consequences and can lead to brain damage or abnormal development. Thankfully those disorders are extremely rare.

    • Photo: Michelle Murphy

      Michelle Murphy answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      If someones skull was too small for their brain it may increase pressure on the brain or press on it and this would cause serious damage.

    • Photo: Joanna Brooks

      Joanna Brooks answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      Hello! Yes, if someone had a very small skull due to a neurophysiological disorder then the brain would not be able to develop properly and brain function would be impaired. There is a disorder like this called ‘microcephaly’ (which means small brain) in which the size of the skull is very small – this could be due to genetics – and the person does not usually live as long as a person with a normal size brain.

      BTW did you do the quiz to find out what sex your brain is?
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/add_user.shtml

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