John Lorber (1915–1996) was a professor of paediatrics at the University of Sheffield from 1979 until his retirement in 1981. He was a member of the Nobel Prize committee. He worked at the Children's Hospital of Sheffield, where he became renowned for his work on spina bifida.
He is also known for his writings on medical ethics, against use of intensive medication for severely handicapped infants, and against active euthanasia.
In 1980, Roger Lewin published an article in Science, "Is Your Brain Really Necessary?",[1] about Lorber studies on cerebral cortex losses. He reports the case of a Sheffield University student who had a measured IQ of 126 and passed a Mathematics Degree but who had hardly any discernible brain matter at all since his cortex was extremely reduced by hydrocephalus.
The brain does not show up on X-Ray so it was only when brain scanning technology became available in the mid 1970s that these many cases of hydrocephalus patients with massively reduced brains came to light. Today, greatly improved standards of ante natal care mean that there are far fewer such cases for study.
The article led to the broadcast of a Yorkshire Television documentary of the same title, though it was about a different patient who had normal brain mass distributed strangely in a very large skull.[2]
Skeptics scoff at the possibility of a mathematics student having "hardly any discernible brain matter at all". They assert that Lorber was in error when he interpreted the brain scan.[3]
David Bowsher, professor of neurophysiology at Liverpool said "Lorber's work doesn't demonstrate that we don't need a brain", and neurosurgeon Kenneth Till said that Lorber is "overdramatic when he says that someone has 'virtually no brain.'" Lorber admitted it later, saying that he "was only half serious", but defends himself with: "I can't say whether the mathematics student has a brain weighing 50 grams or 150 grams, but it is clear that it is nowhere near the normal 1.5 kilograms.". In his later years Lorber expressed great sorrow that more attention had not been paid to his sensational findings.[4]
External links
- "Is the Brain Really Necessary?" at Flatrock.org
References
- ^ Roger Lewin (December 12, 1980). "Is Your Brain Really Necessary?". SCIENCE 210 (4475): 1232–1234. doi:10.1126/science.7434023. PMID 7434023.
- ^ The pressure from the fluid enlarged her skull. Although her brain is thinly spread, it covers her entire braincase, and it is sufficiently thick that she has about 2000cc of brain - it's just very weirdly distributed in an abnormally large cranium. So despite being told all her life that she had only 15% of normal brain mass, the people who told her that hadn't taken the shape of her cranium into account. http://www.metafilter.com/26688/Well-what-about-pain
- ^ http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/science/is_the_brain_really_necessary.htm
- ^ ibid.Today, Lorber's studies have lent important insight to the evolving study of neuroplasticity.
