
No Brainer - shpx
http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=6116
======
jboggan
This could imply that (a) the exterior folds are far more important than the
inner volume or (b) we shouldn't discount interstitial fluid as being inert
with respect to cognition in these cases. Though the absence of lissencephaly
cases with normal or above average intelligence (from a cursory search)
probably supports the former. The latter would be delightfully weird - but I'm
sure there's all kinds of strange and poorly understood things going on your
spinal fluid.

~~~
brianpan
(a) is exactly what is described in a paper he linked- the exterior, and more
important, gray matter is pretty much all there. The vast majority of what is
missing is white matter.

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2015/07/26/is...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2015/07/26/is-
your-brain-really-necessary-revisited/)

Not as exciting when you look at it like that.

~~~
emn13
Also, it's fairly reasonable to assume that IQ doesn't scale nearly linearly
with brain mass (data on male/female differences clearly shows that a 10% size
difference doesn't translate to much of anything on average).

But let's pretend mass difference does simplistically affect neurological
computational throughput. Even then, physically larger brain will need longer,
more expensive signalling pathways, which can't be entirely free. Also, the
larger the animal, the lower the metabolic rate - and translated to a brain
with lots of dead weight, that may mean that mass gained via density is at
least partially offset by a lower metabolic rate of the tissue (i.e. such a
damaged brain may be burning more calories per gram of brain matter left, and
that might even be less efficient overal - but in todays society, I think it's
safe to say that some hypothetical extra calorie needs wouldn't need to be a
problem...)

If you look at it computationally, it's reasonable to assume that many of the
"algorithms" the brain uses scale supra-linearly. If you had twice the
computing power, the accuracy of the resulting solutions wouldn't be twice as
good or arrived at twice as quickly, but some amount much lower than that. To
take the classic example of chess; twice the computing power only lets you
look ahead a fraction of a move more, not twice as many moves. Furthermore,
the brain is a ridiculously parallel computation device. At that scale, it's
conceivable that even considerably fewer neurons that operate slightly more
quickly (due to a higher metabolic rate and shorter signaling pathways) might
perform just as well or even better on certain tasks.

All in all, it doesn't surprise me that a considerable difference in brain
mass don't _necessarily_ translate to an easily measurable IQ difference.
There's going to be some effect surely, but how large would the mass
difference need to be before it's noticeable? I have no idea. And those
dramatic images seem to be from
[http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2807%2961127-1/fulltext),
that describe a patient with IQ 75 - perhaps still impressive, but also
clearly below average.

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olh
I don't remember reading a post as interesting as this one in a long time
here.

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amasad
While "extracorporeal" evokes the supernatural, some scientists have been
working on bringing this back to science. The Relativistic Brain Theory is a
book by the neuroscientist that built some of the first brain computer
interfaces along with a mathematician that worked on the Human Brain Project.
It talks about how the magnetic field created by the electrical current in the
brain creates some sort of analog computer. It's a very interesting read but I
couldn't shake off the feeling that it was somewhat religiously driven.

[http://www.nicolelislab.net/?p=665](http://www.nicolelislab.net/?p=665)

~~~
ivanhoe
One of my professors at old University
([http://www.dejanrakovic.com/english.html](http://www.dejanrakovic.com/english.html))
had a somewhat similar theory about electrical impulses of our brain being
able to extend outside of neural pathways into a much wider surrounding space,
all based on some advanced quantum physics calculations (frankly, too advanced
for me to follow). And yes, he is also heavily inspired by popular
religious/metaphysical ideas, but considering his academical background and
indisputably huge knowledge, it's an interesting Sci-fi idea, to say the
least...

------
geon
> While I was writing Blindsight

I was just about to recommend him to read it. :(

~~~
rayedearthstar
The recommendation may still be appropriate: he hasn't necessarily read it.

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lololomg
The most obvious hypothesis to me is that the (missing) inside parts of the
brain is much less important than the (remaining) outer structures

~~~
dahart
I have a friend working on the Connectome project
([http://cbs.fas.harvard.edu/science/connectome-
project](http://cbs.fas.harvard.edu/science/connectome-project)) who told me
last summer that all brain logic happens in the outer millimeter of tissue,
everything inside is essentially routing.

I'm summarizing his summary, so I'm certain it's more complex than that, but
to a first order approximation, I'd guess your guess is correct!

And so it wouldn't be particularly surprising that someone with cavities in
their brain could be smart. One might expect deficiencies of some sort, but
one might be speculating; I probably wouldn't bet on it.

~~~
amelius
Uhm, but why isn't the routing essential for processing? And why is it there
in the first place? In other words, why wouldn't evolution eliminate this
costly and unnecessary part of the brain?

~~~
trhway
it was mentioned that the condition develops gradually from the normal brain.
So it seems pretty plausible that in some people the brain successfully
rewires in parallel with and in response to the development of the condition
so that direct white matter connections get functionally replaced by some kind
of mesh-style network in the gray matter layer. While this may suggest that
typical amount of white matter may be not strictly necessary, the
significantly less than 100% success rate of such rewiring may explain why
evolution hasn't gone this way .

~~~
rayedearthstar
This is quite unconvincing: the evolutionary advantage of, let's say, all
animals the size of lemurs, having human level intelligence is such that
pressure to find this rewiring would have been unprecedented.

I think more data and research is needed here. My feeling is that when a few
dozen of such cases are closely studied, interesting patterns will emerge.

It is surprising that these cases exhibit high IQ and no immediate signs of
dysfunction, but it would be absolutely extraordinary if no patterns of
difference vs. typical brain were found at all.

~~~
ZenPsycho
evolutionary trees are littered with branches that have thus far been unable
to overcome local maxima- Our eyes' retinas for instance, have optic nerves
that connect on the light sensitive surface, blocking a huge portion of
valuable photons, instead of the logical place to connect them- on the REAR of
the retina- as squid and octopus retinas have been connected in their
completely independent eye evolution.

Once something works "good enough" there's not really any selective pressure
to eliminate obvious design flaws if they don't particularly impede
reproduction or survival.

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andrewflnr
I want to know if people like this are less susceptible to concussion. If so,
and if it's true that there's not necessarily a decrease in ability, it seems
like a strictly superior arrangement.

~~~
stickfigure
Not to mention innate resilience to the impending zombie apocalypse.

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atdt
Energy expended by the brain makes up one-fifth of the resting metabolic rate,
so if it is largely ornamental (by volume), it is a very expensive ornament.

~~~
lmm
I guess the immediate question is, how much energy is this guy's (small) brain
consuming?

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RobertoG
If I remember correctly, grey matter (that is situated in the outside) is grey
because it's mostly composed by cellular bodies.

White matter (in the inside) is white because is mostly composed by axons, and
its function is to connect cellular bodies.

My understanding is that if the external part is not damaged, the processing
power should be there.

Of course, that doesn't explain everything, but we don't need to star to
believe in souls yet.

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rayedearthstar
One possibility is that the mode and requirements of life have changed so
quickly over the last few thousand years that the brain's ability to rewire
and optimize for changed environment is lagging, and disabling large swathes
of it acts as a kind of a shock therapy to rewire the rest of it at fast pace.
The implication is that finding a way to gradually disable parts of the brain
may force similar rewiring of active parts; at this point the latent part may
be re-enabled and may 'learn' from the rewired part. I would volunteer but,
uh..

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plusquamperfekt
So it _is_ for real ... o.O

It's a recurring theme in science that the more we know the more we become
aware how little we actually understand.

But the brain and it's embedding in the rest of the body and environment
raises this phenomenon to a new level.

I think to some extent it shows that considering something to a certain
restricted level as true until falsified is a valid approach. Because a lot of
the things science is uncovering about our mental capabilities has been
postulated for thousands of years by means of introspection and meditation.

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querious
Does anyone know whether this is a degenerative disease or a condition one is
born with? It's possible the whole brain is necessary for learning, (including
learning how to learn more abstract things), but then can be pruned heavily to
move information into denser networks.

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cmarschner
(Stupid question perhaps, but) have they looked outside the skull? Lots of old
brain-like systems are around the spine and other places I hear (guts etc.).
Couldn't there be an anomaly that a part of his brain sits somewhere in his
chest?

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narrator
There are a lot of nerve cells concentrated in the gut and spinal cord[1].
Maybe they took over some of the functions of his missing brain?

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteric_nervous_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteric_nervous_system)

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asab
> The point, though, is that under the right conditions, brain damage may
> paradoxically result in brain enhancement.

Makes me think of one of my favorite stories: 'Understand' by Ted Chiang. In
the story, brain-damaged people treated with an experimental drug gain
superintelligence.

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tim333
It reminds me off the difference between a desktop and laptop computer. I've
often thought it remarkable with them how you squish the circuitry into about
a tenth the volume and get much the same functionality.

~~~
DiabloD3
Except then you realize most of the inside of a desktop is unoptimized empty
space nowadays.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
It's not "unoptimized." It's quite well-optimized for modularity,
expandability, and ease of maintenance.

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kbart
Isn't that because the most of a brain activity happens on cortex?

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hywel
Google cache of this page:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LQ2p32k...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LQ2p32k0Z_0J:www.rifters.com/crawl/%3Fp%3D6116+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=et)
(the actual site is currently down)

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LAMike
How would this bring us closer to the Singularity?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I assume you're referring to this paragraph from the article?

> _But maybe the reality is simpler than the fiction. Maybe you don’t have to
> tweak genes or interface brains with computers to make the next great leap
> in cognitive evolution. Right now, right here in the real world, the
> cognitive function of brain tissue can be boosted— without engineering,
> without augmentation— by literal orders of magnitude. All it takes,
> apparently, is the right kind of stress. And if the neuroscience community
> heeds de Oliveira et al‘s clarion call, we may soon know how to apply that
> stress to order. The singularity might be a lot closer than we think._

