We’ve got our wires crossed: The bizarre stories of people whose brains have rewired themselves
By Lucy Elkins
12th Aug 2008
The human brain is the most complex organ in the body and contains 20 billion cells, responsible for everything from dreaming and movement to appetite and emotions.
It consists mainly of grey matter - the brain cells or neurons where information is processed.
It also contains white matter - the nerve fibres which, like electric cables, send out chemical messengers and relay information between the cells.
In fact, the brain contains more nerve fibres than there are wires in the entire international telephone network and sometimes the brain’s ‘wires’ can become crossed, as a result of injury, illness or genetics.
Scientists used to think a brain injury resulted in permanent damage to the brain’s functions, but new research suggests this is not necessarily the case.
‘When one area of our brain is damaged we now know from scans that the functions of that area are distributed elsewhere,’ says Dr Keith Muir, a senior lecturer in neuroscience at Glasgow University….read rest of story here…
