The Strange and Possibly Scary Human Brain
Thursday, September 27th, 2007
Over the last few days I became aware of stories of brain injury that transformed the people with whom the brain belonged.
Story one was of a Czech driver who was able to speak English fluently after an accident. He could only speak very broken English prior to the accident, and subsequently lost the ability after he recovered.
The second story concerned a boy who had brain surgery and lost his Yorkshire accent and picked up a “posh” accent where all of his vowels were elongated (i.e., bath would be baahth). After his recovery the new accent remained.
Such is the mysterious (and a bit scary) realm of the human brain. Imagine being able to flick a switch on and speak any language you wanted. Become transformed. What other wonders are possible by simply stimulating areas of the brain? Will we discover a collective consciousness?
