26 May 1402 at 16:53
Today we want to discuss the case of patient M. A person who was shot in the brain; But instead of dying, he gained extraordinary abilities. This case gives scientists interesting information about the capabilities of the human brain.
In 1938, just before the start of World War II, Spain was involved in its own civil war. During this war, many people were shot and killed; But one person took a different path. A bullet hit patient M’s brain, but he survived and when he regained consciousness, he saw the world upside down. Of course, this was not the only difference between him and ordinary people.
Patient M presented a different picture of the human brain
First of all, the people around him noticed that he sees people and objects in the opposite direction. A little later, it became clear that this case is not only related to patient M’s sense of sight, but also applies to the sense of hearing and touch. The people around him put two writings in front of him, one was normal and the other was reversed, and asked him to read them. To his surprise, he read both writings with ease and didn’t even notice that one of them was reversed.
The world was not only upside down for the Spanish patient, it could have been upside down. For example, he was amazed when he saw people working upside down on scaffolding. He could also read the clock from any angle without the slightest effort. Although these symptoms also made the Spanish person famous; But investigations showed that he has other interesting symptoms.
He saw colors separately from objects, and sometimes objects appeared in three versions before his eyes. He also struggled with color blindness. Of course, patient M was not afraid of these problems and coped with them. He was even studied for 50 years by a neuroscientist named Justo Gonzalo.
Recently, after several decades, a new article has addressed the issue of patient M. Although scientists tend to conduct experiments on different body organs on a large number of volunteers under strictly controlled conditions, history has shown that specific cases can also provide valuable and different information.
Gonzalo’s investigations led to a dramatic change in the way of looking at the functions of the brain. At that time, there was a common belief among scientists that the brain is made up of different parts and each one does its job separately. Thus, the damage to a part of the brain should only disrupt the functions related to that part and not have much effect on other parts.
However, Gonzalo presented another theory in the 1940s. The theories of that time could not explain the conditions for patient M, that is why he proposed the dynamic brain theory. According to this theory, the functions of the brain are scattered in a small amount in different parts. He also emphasized that the effect of brain damage depends on its dimensions and location as a result of years of examination of patient M and other patients who suffered brain damage.
He also showed well that such injuries do not disrupt specific functions, but affect the balance of a set of functions. He was able to identify three syndromes in this regard: central (disorders in several different senses), close to the center (as central but with asymmetric disorders) and peripheral (effect on the passages of different senses).
Gonzalo’s reviews were considered innovative and extremely specific; But he is not as well known in the world as he should be. This also caused his daughter Isabel Gonzalo-Fonrodona to publish an article in collaboration with a person named Garcia Molina and present the results of her father’s research on patient M in full detail.
Although in the case of patient M, the bullet had disrupted his brain function, but on the other hand, it had also provided him with interesting abilities. Perhaps in the future, we will see that with the progress of science, scientists will create controlled changes in the human brain and provide new capabilities to mankind.