DALLAS: In 2007, a perfectly healthy 44-year-old man complaining of minor leg weakness baffled doctors in France when a medical exam revealed that most of his brain was missing. Although researchers can explain why he lost his brain, figuring out how he managed to live so long without it is more difficult. However, a recent study may shed light on the man’s survival, proposing that brain size and brain function are largely unrelated.
The middle-aged father of two, whose identity was not revealed for privacy concerns, visited his doctor after suffering with mild weakness in his left leg for two weeks. According to the 2007 study on the bizarre case, a more thorough medical examination revealed the patient was missing a significant amount of brain matter. Although it was difficult to measure exactly how much of the brain was absent, according to Lionel Feuillet, a co-author of the study, the doctors estimated that the patient was missing between 50 to 75 percent.
Despite the handicap, the married father of two held a full-time job as a civil servant and showed no other signs of his missing body part other than a slightly below average IQ…