Doctors Discover Woman Without Cerebellum

Chinese doctors have reported a very rare case of a 24-year-old woman who does not have a major part of the brain, the cerebellum.

The unique condition of the woman was discovered when she consulted doctors at the Chinese PLA General Hospital of Jinan Military Area Command in Shandong, reports CBS News.

According to the doctors, the woman complained of bouts of nausea and vomiting. She also told the doctors that she had trouble in maintaining balance throughout her life and that she didn't begin to walk until seven years of age. She never ran or jumped in her life and her speech also was unintelligible until the age of 6.

The doctors at the hospital then scanned her brain and found that she had no cerebellum. Instead, there was a  large hole in the area filled with cerebrospinal fluid.

The cerebellum is the part of the brain responsible for maintaining balance of a person. It also controls a person's motor skills.  People with abnormalities in this area of the brain suffer from speech and motor problems and epilepsy.

However, in such situations the brain creates new neural pathways to make up for the deficiencies. This phenomenon is called neuroplasticity. The new pathways thus created allow the person to function at optimal or near-optimal levels. In the present case, the woman's brain took more than five years to compensate for the lack of cerebellum.

"It shows that the young brain tends to be much more flexible or adaptable to abnormalities," said Dr. Raj Narayan, a professor of neurosurgery at North Shore University Hospital in New York who wasn't involved with the case. "When a person is either born with an abnormality or at a very young age loses a particular part of the brain, the rest of the brain tries to reconnect and to compensate for that loss or absence," Narayan said, reports Fox News.

The report was published in the August edition of the Journal Brain.