# Positive brain damage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 20, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897 "2010-06-20T19:50:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Negative\_Lite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Negative\_Lite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Negative_Lite)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/21 "2010-06-21T13:17:30Z")
I’ve experienced positive brain damage from having a bottle in front of me. Effects have ranged from a feeling of joyousness to enhanced powers of seduction. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/22 "2010-06-21T15:26:59Z")
A wife of one of my friends was a high maintenance bitch. She was good looking and had a great bod. But she was hard to be around. She had a serious stroke and was touch and go . When she recovered she became very sweet and nice. She also gained about 100 pounds. But her personalty change was dramatic and positive. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/23 "2010-06-21T15:31:30Z")
What about Mama Cass? OK, not personality related, but after a head injury she was able to sing in the range that John Philips wanted her to. (Sounds so sinister when I say it that way.) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/24 "2010-06-21T15:52:19Z")
Robert Arthur’s 1963 short story “Obstinate Uncle Otis” is about a man hit by lightning who not only thinks he’s now someone else, but has the power to change reality with the power of his mind (“There’s no hill outside my east window,” he stubbornly says, and poof, it’s gone). Just a little chilling but very funny. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/25 "2010-06-21T16:06:36Z")
Surgeons may, in rare cases, sever the corpus callosom to control otherwise intractable and severe seizures. [http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/corpus\_collostomy](http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/corpus_collostomy) ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/26 "2010-06-21T17:39:06Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Oliver Sacks has another story (I cannot recall where) of a man who had some sort of accident or trauma and woke up as suddenly a musical genius. He had previously had no particular interest in music. This is what I came into the thread to relate; it is the first case study in Sacks’s book “Musicophilia” (which I can highly recommend, even though I lost my copy in a train station having only read the first few chapters). I believe there are other examples given in the book. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/27 "2010-06-21T18:30:15Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > What about Mama Cass? OK, not personality related, but after a head injury she was able to sing in the range that John Philips wanted her to. (Sounds so sinister when I say it that way.) Actually, John originally kept her out of the group because he thought she was too fat. Later, they decided they needed something that sounded a bit better to the press than that so they made up the pipe incident. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/28 "2010-06-21T18:34:41Z")
Oops–taken in by an UL! Thanks, **engineer\_comp\_geek**. Poor Cass. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/29 "2010-06-21T18:35:40Z")
I don’t think it is based on a true story, but the plot of “Regarding Henry” is based around the topic in the OP. It’s a good movie (IMHO) if you haven’t seen it. ---
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/30 "2010-06-21T18:38:13Z")
I don’t know if this meets your definition of “brain damage” or whether you were thinking of something more trauma related, but there have been reports of people with Pick’s disease developing artistic abilities. From [this site](http://helpguide.org/elder/picks_disease.htm): > [@](#): > > For instance, at the University of California/San Francisco Medical Center’s Memory and Aging Center, doctors discovered a small group of frontotemporal dementia patients who developed new creative skills in music and art. The artistic talents emerged when the brain cell loss occurred predominantly in the left frontal lobe, which controls functions such as language. > > As the ability to communicate through words declined, these patients’ brains somehow accessed other realms of self-expression. So exploring and encouraging the development of latent skills is one way in which Pick’s Disease patients can maintain their quality of life and possibly slow the progress of mental deterioration ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/31 "2010-06-21T18:45:53Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Oops–taken in by an UL! It’s pretty easy to be taken in by this one considering that everyone, including Cass herself, actively promoted it as the truth. I think Cass even mentioned it in a Rolling Stone interview way back when. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/32 "2010-06-21T19:02:23Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > It’s pretty easy to be taken in by this one considering that everyone, including Cass herself, actively promoted it as the truth. I think Cass even mentioned it in a Rolling Stone interview way back when. Oh yeah–on the snopes page that I just looked up after I saw your post, they quoted her saying that. ---
**Author:** ![JFLuvly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac91a4/32.png) [@JFLuvly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JFLuvly)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/33 "2010-06-21T19:05:53Z")
Off topic, but my little story about the Mamas & the Papas. My Dad met Denny Doherty outside of the Midtown Tavern in Halifax, late one night, back in the early sixties. Denny was going on to my Dad and his friends about how he was leaving for L.A. to become a rich and famous singer. Needless to say they just blew him off as some drunken nut job, funny how things work out. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/34 "2010-06-21T21:23:17Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Oliver Sacks’s _The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat_ has an interesting case history of a woman whose personality was radically altered (in her opinion, for the better) due to neurosyphilis, an infection she acquired decades prior when working as a prostitute in a brothel, and which remained dormant until she was much older. I recall that; it had been treated with sulfa drugs and not penicillin and apparently it can survive that and flare up later. She had an inhibited personality, and the disease started to destroy her inhibitions. She recognized what was happening and why, and deliberately let it go on for a time. She eventually went in for treatment when she thought it beginning to go too far. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/35 "2010-06-21T21:54:10Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I recall that; it had been treated with sulfa drugs and not penicillin and apparently it can survive that and flare up later. She had an inhibited personality, and the disease started to destroy her inhibitions. She recognized what was happening and why, and deliberately let it go on for a time. She eventually went in for treatment when she thought it beginning to go too far. That sounds similar to the reason why people drink alcohol. Also, I want to point out that so-called savant abilities are caused by parts of the brain that don’t work properly. So if damage could affect one of those areas, it might make the brain work “better.” An example of temporarily doing just that is done with magnetic interference. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/36 "2010-06-21T21:54:24Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Surgeons may, in rare cases, sever the corpus callosom to control otherwise intractable and severe seizures. [http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/corpus\_collostomy](http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/corpus_collostomy) Another example of deliberate brain damage (and by that I’m assuming we’re talking about _healthy_ tissue in the brain), is when a part of the basal ganglia is removed for parkinson’s disease. The part that is removed is not pathogenic: there exists a balance between excitatory and inhibitory units within this part of the brain. PD may be caused by atrophy of one of these units; and a fix of sorts is to artificially “atrophy” the complementary unit. Though there are [alternatives](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_brain_stimulation)to doing this surgically. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/37 "2010-06-21T22:03:07Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Though there are [alternatives](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_brain_stimulation)to doing this surgically. The first line of that link says DBS is a surgical technique :smack: Of course what I meant was, there are alternatives to surgical resection. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/38 "2010-06-21T23:46:23Z")
Here’s an interesting article abstract discussing musical talents apparently gained after lighting strikes, brain surgery and on some meds. Subscription required for complete article (which I didn’t read). > **[A Bolt from the Blue](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/07/23/a-bolt-from-the-blue)** > > Where do sudden intense passions come from? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/39 "2010-06-22T02:33:14Z")
From _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind:_ Joel: Is there any risk of brain damage? Howard: Well, technically speaking, the operation is brain damage, but it’s on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you’ll miss. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2010, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897/40 "2010-06-23T13:56:56Z")
More from Oliver Sacks: The “secret” of Shostakovich, it was suggested -by a Chinese neurologist, Dr. Dajue Wang - was the presence of a metallic splinter, a mobile shell-fragment, in his brain, in the temporal horn of the left ventricle. Shostakovich was very reluctant, apparently, to have this removed: Since the fragment had been there, he said, each time he leaned his head to one side he could hear music. His head was filled with melodies - different each time - which he then made use of when composing. [http://www.acamedia.info/sciences/sciliterature/remini.htm](http://www.acamedia.info/sciences/sciliterature/remini.htm) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/positive-brain-damage/543897.md?page=3)