How Much of the Brain Can A Person Do Without?

September 23, 2014

This month a 24-year-old woman in China's Shandong Province walked into a hospital complaining of nausea and dizziness, and walked out having learned that she was missing a huge portion of her brain. A CAT scan showed that her entire cerebellum, a vital chunk of brain in charge of motor control, never developed. The void where it should have been was nothing but a swamp of cerebrospinal fluid. 

How could a person live a full life not knowing so much of her brain was gone? Her doctors believe that her cortex (a nearby area of the brain) took over most of the load as her incomplete brain developed, thanks to an amazing feature of the brain called neuroplasticity—the brain's ability to fundamentally rewire itself to cope with new demands. The brain can't cope with everything, and the more of it is lost, the less it can reassign functions to the remaining pieces. But neuroplasticity is nonetheless quite remarkable. 

The woman from China's is far from the only such bizarre and fascinating story. A short trip through the annals of modern medicine reveals even more surprising cases of missing brain structures. 

Missing Half of the Cerebral Cortex

There are a surprising number of known cases of people missing half of their cerebral cortex—the outermost chunk of brain tissue. A currently living and healthy 16-year-old German girl is one. She was born without the right hemisphere of her cortex, though this wasn't discovered until she was 3 years old. According to her doctors, who published a full case study on her 6 years ago, "despite lacking one hemisphere, the girl has normal psychological function and is perfectly capable of living a normal and fulfilling life. She is witty, charming, and intelligent." 

The physical ailments caused by her missing brain tissue were seizures (since treated) and a slight weakness on the left side of her body. But here's something amazing about the way her brain has coped: While most people missing half their cerebral cortex lose sight in one eye, her left eye processes visual information from both the right and left visual field. In other words, her doctors say that while she has no depth perception (which is dependent on two eyes seeing slightly different images), her vision is otherwise like that of someone with two eyes, encompassing the entire mental field of vision. 

Missing Half the Entire Brain

In a more severe case, Michelle Mack, a 42-year-old Virginia native, is missing not only half of her cortex but most of the deeper, underlying brain structures on her left side as well. This neural abnormality is believed to be the cause of a prebirth seizure, but was not diagnosed until Mack was 27. 

Mack graduated high school and speaks and communicates with some level of normality—thanks to neuroplasticity. But her brain has not faultlessly rewired itself: Mack still has issues comprehending abstract concepts, is prone to emotional distress, and her lowered visual–spatial processing ability means that she also is easily lost in unfamiliar surroundings. Yet, living with her parents, she nevertheless manages a productive and fulfilling life. 

Missing All but the Brain Stem

Trevor Waltrip, born in Louisiana on Christmas Eve in 2001, has defied the odds for 12 years. He lived without any brain at all save the brain stem. 

Trevor was born with a rare condition called hydranencephaly, which replaced his neural tissue with cerebrospinal fluid. His brain stem allowed him to breathe and maintain a heartbeat but little more. He was kept on a feeding tube up until last month, when he passed away peacefully.

Ojo Maduekwe: "All Hail The Lion"

September 20, 2014

“I, the lion, tamed the Leopard in Rivers State”, said a former Commissioner of Police in Rivers State, Mr. Joseph Mbu, this week when he consciously stepped outside the professional precinct to throw jibes at the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi. In this report, Ojo M. Maduekwe, analyses his recent outburst within the context of his stint as police commissioner in the state

It would be the career highpoint of every Police Force Public Relations Officer (PRO) Nigeria has ever had if Nigerians are convinced that the police are their friend. Some, like the immediate past PRO, Frank Mba, genuinely did their best to project a friendly police force to the Nigerian public.

The new PRO, Emmanuel Ojukwu, during the handover ceremony added in his acceptance speech that, “the Police are your helper and friend.”

But the conduct of officers such as the former Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Joseph Mbu, remains bad publicity that could ruin their efforts.

Before his redeployment to Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, as the Commissioner of Police for the FCT, and later elevated to the position of an Assistant Inspector General of Police, Mbu was always in the news in a confrontational manner with the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi.

Their dispute stemmed from accusations of bias and unprofessionalism. Many described Mbu’s handling of differences between him and Amaechi to have been rather political than professional. THISDAY had published an article then titled, ‘Mbu Joseph Mbu: Police or Politician?’ The piece stated in part: “Ever since the crisis in Rivers State broke, Mbu has brazenly shown partisan tendencies, making many to wonder whether he is a policeman or a politician.”

Governor Amaechi at the time had accused him of being on a mission to the state and that he was working for the First Lady. Indeed, he further described him as the military wing of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The disagreement degenerated to the point that there was a clamour in the media, led by the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), for either the sack or redeployment of Mbu, a campaign that would later necessitate his redeployment to Abuja.

One may never know the exact truth behind the dispute, and so some could argue that if properly analysed, the governor would probably be found partly guilty for engineering the disputes. However, such a position, observers insisted, could only have been taken by those who failed to interpret Mbu’s leadership of the police in the state, side-by-side with his antecedents.

But for Mbu, who is a high ranking police officer, his recent comment concerning the months spent in Rivers as Police Commissioner has shown that his years of experience in the force have done little to influence his professional conduct and to a large extent, his attitudinal disposition.

Recently, after he was redeployed from Commissioner of Police FCT, and made the AIG for Zone 7, Abuja, Mbu, while handing over to his successor, Mr Wilson Inalegu boasted: “I, the lion, tamed the Leopard in Rivers State. It is only lion that can tame leopard. Each time the leopard remembers my face, it makes noise, but if it knows I am around, it cannot make noise.”

Although he made no mention of who the leopard was, being that aside his confrontation with the Bring Back Our Girls group, wherein he banned their gathering, Amaechi was the only personality Mbu has disagreed with publicly.

Even though he once claimed to respect Amaechi and his office, Mbu, as Rivers State Commissioner of Police, earned national notoriety by harassing and disrespecting Amaechi and his supporters. He gave as little as nothing to the office of the governor in terms of respect.
Responding to Mbu’s claim of taming him, Amaechi, in a statement through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. David Iyofor, described Mbu as a puppet who lacks the steel and strength of a lion.

Part of the statement read: “This character called Joseph Mbu completely lacks the courage, steel and strength of a lion. Rather, he is a shameless, corrupt puppet of a woman. How can a man who has no strength of character, a man who willingly submits himself to serve as a puppet of a woman call himself a lion?”

In the statement, the governor made an argument that should enlighten every police officer of their duties to the society. Amaechi said of Mbu: “This is a man paid by taxpayers to protect, secure and serve the interests of the people. But when he was in Rivers State, he spurned the people, trampled on the masses.”

Amaechi’s argument could be considered under what is globally termed ‘the Nine Principles of Policing’, as coined by Robert Peel.
In 1829, the first modern police force was created in London by then home secretary, Robert Peel. Peel’s policing principles formed the basis for foundation of the London Metropolitan Police Force, and was reported to have been the precursor to and model for all police forces in Canada and the United States of America. Part of the principles that underscore Mbu’s actions and outburst as being unprofessional are listed as follows:

The police must remember “To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect; to recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.”

Also the police are advised “To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives; to seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion;

“But by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.”

Lastly, “To maintain at all times, a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.”

Mbu may argue that his actions as Commissioner of Police in Rivers, was him fulfilling his professional duties. But, how true was that? Was his unilateral banning of the peaceful gathering of the Bring Back Our Girls group, an action that was overruled by the then Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, another way of him fulfilling his professional duties?

What about the time he was alleged to have led a team of policemen, few months before he was moved to Rivers, to raid the palace of the Olubadan, allegedly on orders from above?

Irrespective of his many misdemeanours, Mbu’s indiscretions have over the months been rewarded with redeployment and now elevation. Even though at a time, a former Inspector General of Police, who now heads the Police Service Commission, Mike Okiro, said Mbu’s conduct in Rivers was being probed, his recent elevation and continuous outburst, has fuelled the assumption by many that Mbu has Abuja connections up to Aso Rock.

Even with a thousand Force PRO’s seeking to rebrand the Nigeria Police Force, Nigerians would continue to view the force with suspicion; except actions and utterances of officers like that of Mbu are checked.

As an AIG, many would reckon that Mbu’s elevation is of no benefit to the society, which he is by law sworn to police; unless he is tamed and properly trained to understand that the principles of policing all over the world is community-based and unbiased.

This article was sourced from here.

Opinion | PUNISHMENT OR CHILD ABUSE?

September 18, 2014

The indictment in the United States last week of the N.F.L. player Adrian Peterson by a Texas grand jury for reckless or negligent injury to a child has set into relief the harmful disciplinary practices of some black families. Mr. Peterson used a “switch,” a slim, leafless tree branch, to beat his 4-year-old son, raising welts on the youngster’s legs, buttocks and scrotum. This is child abuse dressed up as acceptable punishment.

While 70 percent of Americans approve of corporal punishment, black Americans have a distinct history with the subject. Beating children has been a depressingly familiar habit in black families since our arrival in the New World. As the black psychiatrists William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs wrote in “Black Rage,” their 1968 examination of psychological black life: “Beating in child-rearing actually has its psychological roots in slavery and even yet black parents will feel that, just as they have suffered beatings as children, so it is right that their children be so treated.”

The lash of the plantation overseer fell heavily on children to whip them into fear of white authority. Terror in the field often gave way to parents beating black children in the shack, or at times in the presence of the slave owner in forced cooperation to break a rebellious child’s spirit. Black parents beat their children to keep them from misbehaving in the eyes of whites who had the power to send black youth to their deaths for the slightest offense. Today, many black parents fear that a loose tongue or flash of temper could get their child killed by a trigger-happy cop. They would rather beat their offspring than bury them.

If beating children began, paradoxically, as a violent preventive of even greater violence, it was enthusiastically embraced in black culture, especially when God was recruited. As an ordained Baptist minister with a doctorate in religion, I have heard all sorts of religious excuses for whippings.

And I have borne the physical and psychic scars of beatings myself. I can’t forget the feeling, as a 16-year-old, of my body being lifted from the floor in my father’s muscular grip as he cocked back his fist to hammer me until my mother’s cry called him off. I loved my father, but his aggressive brand of reproof left in me a trail of un-cried tears.

Like many biblical literalists, lots of black believers are fond of quoting Scriptures to justify corporal punishment, particularly the verse in Proverbs 13:24 that says, “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.” But in Hebrew, the word translated as “rod” is the same word used in Psalms 23:4, “thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” The shepherd’s rod was used to guide the sheep, not to beat them.

Many believers — including Mr. Peterson, a vocal Christian — have confused the correction of children’s behavior with corporal punishment. The word “discipline” comes from the Latin “discipuli,” which means student or disciple, suggesting a teacher-pupil relationship. Punishment comes from the Greek word “poine” and its Latin derivative “poena,” which mean revenge, and form the root words of pain, penalty and penitentiary.

The point of discipline is to transmit values to children. The purpose of punishment is to coerce compliance and secure control, and failing that, to inflict pain as a form of revenge, a realm the Bible says belongs to God alone.

Yet secular black culture thrives on colorful stories of punishment that are passed along as myths of ancient wisdom — a type of moral glue that holds together varying communities in black life across time and circumstance. Black comedians cut their teeth on dramatically recalling “whoopings” with belts, switches, extension cords, hairbrushes or whatever implement was at hand. Even as genial a comic as Bill Cosby offered a riff in his legendary 1983 routine that left no doubt about the deadly threat of black punishment. “My father established our relationship when I was 7 years old,” Mr. Cosby joked. “He looked at me and says, ‘You know, I brought you in this world, I’ll take you out. And it don’t make no difference to me, cause I’ll make another one look just like you.’ ”

The humor is blunted when we recall that Marvin Gaye’s life ended violently in 1984 at the hands of his father, a minister who brutalized him mercilessly as a child before shooting him to death in a chilling echo of Mr. Cosby’s words.

Perhaps comedians make us laugh to keep us from crying, but no humor can mask the suffering that studies say our children endure when they are beaten: feelings of sadness and worthlessness, difficulties sleeping, suicidal thoughts, bouts of anxiety, outbursts of aggression, diminished concentration, intense dislike of authority, frayed relations with peers, and negative high-risk behavior.

Equally tragic is that those who are beaten become beaters too. And many black folks are reluctant to seek therapy for their troubles because they may be seen as spiritually or mentally weak. The pathology of beatings festers in the psychic wounds of black people that often go untreated in silence.

Adrian Peterson’s brutal behavior toward his 4-year-old son is, in truth, the violent amplification of the belief of many blacks that beatings made them better people, a sad and bleak justification for the continuation of the practice in younger generations. After Mr. Peterson’s indictment, the comedian D. L. Hughley tweeted: “A fathers belt hurts a lot less then a cops bullet!”

He is right, of course, but only in a forensic, not a moral or psychological sense. What hurts far less than either is the loving correction of our children’s misbehavior so they become healthy adults who speak against violence wherever they find it — in the barrel of a policeman’s gun, the fist of a lover or the switch of a misguided parent.

This piece was written by Michael Eric Dyson for the New York Times.

Festus Keyamo: The Cock-and-Bull Story of the Federal Government Over the Smuggled $9.3m Cash

September 18, 2014

Festus Keyamo

I have just read, with some amusement, the position of the Federal Government regarding the cash totaling $9.3million that was seized by the South African authorities as an attempt was made to smuggle it into that country. From my little understanding, the Federal Government’s position can be summarised as follows:

• That it is aware of the movement of such large sum of money by cash out of the country.

• That the cash is meant for the purchase of arms to fight insurgency.

• That the transaction was done by cash to ensure the speed of the transaction.

• That it resorted to buy from South Africa because of procedural bottlenecks in the purchase of such items from western countries.

The above position of the Federal Government is not only ludicrous, it is laughable, untenable and a story only fit to be told to the marines. The following rhetoric posers are germane to this issue:

• Is it really faster and safer to do an international transaction of such magnitude by ferrying cash across the continent or by a simple wire transfer that can go through in a matter of few minutes or few hours?

• If, indeed, the matter involves security issues like the purchase of arms by a foreign government like Nigeria, why was the South African Government not brought into the picture beforehand? How could the South African Government be sure that the arms were purchased legitimately by the Nigerian government and not by insurgents if they were not officially informed beforehand?

• If indeed the manufacturer(s) of such equipment was/were expecting such large amount by cash, why did they not make adequate arrangements with the authorities in South Africa to declare and clear the cash on arrival?

• Why was money belonging to the Federal Government and meant for purchase of equipment for the Federal Government moved by a private jet and by private individuals and why were they not accompanied by the officials of the Department of State Services or the office of the National Security Adviser in official capacities?

• Why would a government that is at the peak of promoting the cashless policy in our economy be the chief breaker of that policy by moving such a large amount by cash?

• If, indeed, it was a legitimate transaction of the Federal Government, why were the officials of our embassy in South Africa not on hand to make the entry easier and smoother?

• Since the South African Government has said the amount is above the limit of cash allowed into that country, why would a whole government like Nigeria not know the simple immigration laws of a sister and friendly country before allowing that type of amount of cash to be taken to that country?

• Why would the Nigerian government seek to smuggle cash into a country without disclosure if it was, indeed, for a legitimate transaction?

• From where did the Federal Government source that amount in Nigeria? Was it from the Central Bank of Nigeria or from the black market? Nigerians demand answers to this with proof.

• Is it just a wicked coincidence that it is the aircraft belonging to a personal friend and unapologetic ally of the President in the person of Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor (my big brother in Warri), that was used to smuggle the cash?

• If, contrary to the above posers, the transaction was contracted out to a private company in Nigeria, does it not amount to the offence of Money Laundering under our laws for the Federal Government to have allowed that company to attempt to pay for the equipment by cash to the tune of that amount without passing through a financial institution?

The truth is, any transaction the world over that is done by cash, in a huge volume like this and in this manner can only point to one thing: It is an illegal transaction or a transaction for an illegal purpose that is meant to be untraceable. This was a covert, illegal operation that went horribly wrong. The position of the Federal Government is a cock-and-bull story meant to be shoved down the throat of Nigerians, but some of us are not fools.

The hard fact we must all accept now is that billions of our hard-earned monies are being smuggled out of the country on a regular basis under the guise of security matters and with the active connivance of security agencies. Little wonder, then, that the insurgency, rather than waning, is gathering momentum because certain persons, somewhere, are feeding fat on the situation whilst innocent lives and limbs are being wasted.

May God help us all.

Thank you.

FESTUS KEYAMO, ESQ.

This article was retrieved from here on September 17, 2014 at 11:14pm.

The "Untamable" Leopard and the "Wannabe" Lion

September 17, 2014

1.

In the days of Chinua Achebe's ancestors, tortoises flew the skies and chose nicknames for themselves, whales ferried humans across oceans, and crocodiles climbed trees for fun. Today, hyenas laugh, larks sing, and koalas wail. Now, going by current news reports, it does appear that lions and leopards now speak and trade banters. Truly, our Transformation Train acknowledges no boundaries and knows no limits.

2.

A certain lion claims to have tamed a leopard in Igweocha; the leopard says a thousand such lions cannot tame it and instead dismisses that "wannabe lion" as a mere hapless dog which does the bidding of another animal.

3.

The lion and the leopard are two big cats; they are both wild animals. How does one wild animal tame the other?

4.

Is there a leopard in Igweocha? Is Igweocha a game reserve? 

5.

If a thousand lions are insufficient to tame the leopard, biko gwanu m, how many lions (or dogs) will be required to tame the leopard?

6.

If the "lion" is really a dog, what kind of dog? Domestic? Wild? Hyena? Wolf? Nkita?

#JustMusing

The above piece has been inspired by a news story that was seen in a Nigerian newspaper on September 17, 2014.