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#1
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02-18-2011, 01:04 AM
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 ♚ Legacy Gold Member ♚ Poster Rank:1666 Male Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 326 Mentioned: 1 Post(s) Quoted: 54 Post(s)
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3 Year Old Boy Functions Without Cerebellum or Pons!
BUFFALO, N.Y. — According to conventional medical wisdom, three-year-old Chase Britton shouldn’t be able to walk. He shouldn’t be able to stand, let alone balance himself as he puts one foot in front of the other. The fact that he even breathes on his own is nothing short of remarkable. He is, quite simply, a medical miracle. Chase doesn’t have a cerebellum, the part of the brain that plays an important role in motor control, coordination, balance and emotional function. The little boy from Buffalo, N.Y., has stumped doctors and scientists, and challenged the medical establishment’s understanding of how the brain works. “Chase has defied all of our expectations,” said Dr. Luther Robinson, director of clinical genetics at the Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, who has been treating Chase since he was born. “When you think about the area of the brain that is involved . . . we would have predicted a far worse outcome. His case is astounding.” Heather Britton, Chase’s mom, says her son seemed like any other normal baby at first, except for the fact that he was born legally blind. But when Chase was about six months old, he started having trouble with his motor skills, she said. Fearing a possible early onset of mild cerebral palsy, doctors ordered Chase to undergo an MRI. The results were bewildering. “We got a call the very next day, and they didn’t quite know what to tell us,” Britton said from her home in Buffalo, where she lives with her husband David, Chase and elder son, Alex. At first, doctors thought Chase had severe cerebellar hypoplasia, a disorder in which the cerebellum is not completely mature at birth. But further tests revealed that Chase simply didn’t have a cerebellum — at all. What makes the case even more bizarre is that pre-natal images of Chase show that he did have a cerebellum. But it just disappeared when he was born. “Knowing he had a cerebellum, there should have been some tissue left,” Britton said. “And if there were some kind of injury, the rest of the brain would show evidence of that. But the rest of his brain is absolutely fine. Everyone is baffled.” Doctors also discovered he was born without a pons, the part of the brain that helps automatically regulate some of the body’s basic functions, such as sleeping, breathing and swallowing. Yet he seems to have no problem with any of those. In fact, Chase has continued to develop his speech and motor skills, albeit slowly, against all expectations. He can now stand up by himself with the help of nearby furniture. He walks with the aid of a walker. He laughs. He signs. He’s potty training. His vocabulary has expanded now to 75 words, a number that is growing daily as Chase imitates his parents, who ensure he is constantly stimulated. “He surprises us all the time with sentences he’ll repeat and things he’ll just come out with,” said Britton. “He’s not at age level for (speech development), but he’s constantly progressing.” Dr. Adre du Plessis, chief of fetal and transitional medicine at Children’s National Medical Centre in Washington, D.C., who has been working with Chase for the past two years, calls his patient’s diagnosis a “mystery.” “He clearly is doing much better than we would have expected based on conventional wisdom,” he said. Robinson says Chase’s case is teaching doctors and researchers to be “cautiously optimistic” when it comes to diagnosing patients, “because kids don’t always meet what the statistical data would suggest.” “This is something I’ve never seen before,” he said. “We’re working on trying to figure out what this means from a brain embryology point of view, and from a genetic expressions point of view, among others. There are a lot of questions that we have yet to answer as far as Chase’s case is concerned.” Record news services --Taken from Guelphmercury.com-- --Authored by Kenyon Wallace--
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#9
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03-05-2011, 07:32 PM
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 My Rank: CORPORAL Poster Rank:1657 Male Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 330 Mentioned: 0 Post(s) Quoted: 0 Post(s)
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Re: 3 Year Old Boy Functions Without Cerebellum or Pons!
Oh yeah? My dad keeps telling my brother doesn't have a brain. Yet, there he is, annoying as fuck and trolling everyone irl.
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