“I could have probably taken over the world if I had my entire brain.”
: Most of the Interesting Brains Project participants featured in this story are using shortened forms of their names and/or pseudonyms to protect their privacy.Meet her on the street, and it’d be impossible to tell she’s lacking a chunk of neural tissue about the size of a small fist.
Elyse and her sister, Martha M., who are not using their full names to maintain their anonymity, look and act perfectly ordinary. But each lacks most of a temporal lobe, and each in a different hemisphere. Elyse is also missing part of her brain stem. The women are two of who knows how many people living their lives without brain structures generally thought to be crucial.
Fedorenko didn’t know it at the time, but those first studies would set in motion a whirlwind that would alter the course of her research. Her team’s findings would ignite media attention, prompting even more people to send along their brain scans. What started as a single case study has now snowballed intoBy the end of this fall, the project will likely have scanned more than 40 people with atypical brains.
At an appointment with a neurologist at the George Washington University Hospital, Elyse — who had been previously diagnosed with epilepsy despite never having a seizure — sensed mostly boredom from the doctor and an accompanying resident. They didn’t pay her much notice, she says. Martha’s doctor looked at Elyse’s scan and told her that as MRIs were becoming more common, doctors were finding other people with brains that diverged from the norm. “He said, ‘We’re seeing more and more deviations, and you’ve got one,’ ” she remembers.
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