Monday 18 June 2001

Pic of the day: Scientific American, June issue.

What, me brain damaged?

It almost makes sense. Here I was sitting at the bus stop, reading Scientific American. There was an article about brain damage and sign language. As you know, the speech centers are usually in the left brain hemisphere ... indeed, the two halves of the brain are so separate that some people refer to them as "left brain" and "right brain" respectively. Apart from controlling different body parts, the two halves also differ in other ways. Anyway, the parts that control speech lie close to relevant areas. Relevant, for us people who hear and talk.

The point of the article was that deaf people still use those same parts of the brain for sign language, even though they are on the opposite side of the brain from what would be natural for such movements. Evidently the brain areas for language are now genetically fixed in place in the brain. (This probably also shoots down the theory that our spoken language evolved from sign language and only recently moved to the vocal apparatus.)

To me, something else in the article was more interesting. Namely, the effect of right side brain damage. I quote: "Instead right hemisphere damage is more often associated with severe visual-spatial problems, such as the inability to copy a simple line drawing."

***

Back when I was 19, I started to study engineering. Engineers are useful, and here in Norway they are held in high regard. There are too few of them. I am smart, and so should have no trouble becoming an engineer. Or so I thought. One of the first courses was freehand drawing. I kept trying to copy the drawing of an ink well. I kept trying and trying. I failed miserably. Finally I gave up.

I can pick up words, idioms and grammatical forms that have no equivalent in my native tongue. I can trace and even construct complex pathways of logic, as in computer programming. I understand equations and exponential functions deeply and intuitively. But I can't copy a drawing of an inkwell to get my dream job. I just can't.

There is more. Recalling people by their faces, another typical right-brain function. This is quite difficult for me, so much so as to embarass me fairly regularly. I have trouble navigating in unfamiliar terrain, keeping directions; I can get lost even in really small towns. All of them right brain functions. And I have mentioned in the past how in a test of handedness, I scored 10 out of 10 right-side. My left hand assist me as best it can, in typing for instance, but the right has the initiave.

I have just thought that, well, there are all kinds of people in the world. Some are more left-handed, others are more right- handed. There must be someone at the extremes too, so why not me? After all, on most mental tasks I come out better than the average. So who am I to complain?

But now I wonder. Was I born with a minor brain dysfunction? Or did I fall down when I was small and bash my brain in? Perhaps I could have been as intelligent as my mother or my brothers, probing the upper reaches of the humanly possible. Instead, I am just another genius. Oh terrible fate. :)

***

But then I read another passage. "Patients with right hemisphere damage may be able to construct words and sentences quite well, but they frequently ramble from one subject to the next with only a loose thread of a connection between topics."

Now that's not like me at all, is it? I mean, rambling? I choose a subject and then I stick ... Oh! Must play Sims!