01: The Phantom Within

“I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routines of everyday life.” This quote by Sherlock Holmes can be used to Describe Dr. Ramachandran‘s curiosity of neuroscience. The perplexity of the unknown and unconventional is what lead Dr. Ramachandran to explore neuroscience, and that is shown throughout his book, “Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind.” Speaking with God, having feeling in a limb that no longer exists, a visual field filled with cartoon characters, death by laughter, these are just a few of the many cases explored by neuroscientists today. The question that invigorates this field of science is deceptively simple, “why?” Why this is happening to the patient, it is not always a simple case of mental unbalance but often times, a case of neural abnormalities. Out of the many patients discussed in this chapter, two of them may captivate the power of the brain, the case of H.M and Bill Marshall.

H.M was a patient who, in an effort to save his life, had both of his hippocampi removed. The hippocampus, located near the bottom of the brain, the hippocampus is used in memory. The interesting thing about HM is that he could remember past events, events that occurred before the operation, but could not form new memories. One could have a full conversation with HM for hours, leave to go to the restroom, and upon returning, HM will have recollection of who that person is. An interesting, “experiment” is one done in which HM was asked to trace his way through a maze every day. HM would consistently get better at this task however, day after day, he would have no recollection of ever seeing the maze before. This gave insight on how one portion of the brain can be tremendously important for specific functions.

Bill Marshall’s case is a bit more convoluted and involves the ability to comprehend numbers, a trait unique to humans. Bill, once an Air Force pilot was, in the words of Ramachandran, fluent, intelligent, and articulate, however, he could not add and subtract simple numbers. How could this be? How could one comprehend complex ideas, such as jokes, but not know what 17 minus 3 is? This is due to a stroke in the angular gyrus, damaging a pathway that is not completely understood yet. However, it is known that patients with this disorder, “dyscalculia” of often also cannot name the finger that a neurologist is point to or touching.

This is a case perfect for Dr. Ramachadran, how does the pathway for adding and subtracting numbers relate to finger identification? Could this be why we learn to count with our fingers?

Sadly, neither of these patients were treatable, however the knowledge gained from their dispositions has been important to the field of neuroscience. Cases like this are seen throughout this book.