Brain damage (and drugs) can cause synesthesia.
so can low oxygen levels
Can they? I didn’t know that.
My cite is The Man Who Tasted Shapes by Richard E. Cytowic, MD, published in 1993 by Putnam Books. It was found in at least one test subject that changes in blood/brain oxygenation could either intensify or mute his synthesia.
Oh. Right. Although a he changed his mind about a lot of what he said in between The Man Who Tasted Shapes and Wednesday Is Indigo Blue. I don’t know what he says about that now.
I hadn’t heard about his second book - thanks, when I have the money for new reading material I’ll have to look into it.
ETA: better yet - I just checked and my library system has a copy!
I wonder if synesthesia being far more common in left-handed people is because it has the same proposed cause as left-handedness: oxygen deprivation during birth. (I’m both and was so oxygen deprived during a traumatic birth that I was given oxygen before I was fully delivered.)
Anyone ever see the movie “Phenomenon” starring John Travolta and Kyra Sedgwick? It fits in this thread really well.
Are you not aware of the distinction between fact and fiction?
If you enjoyed the books previously mentioned, or you’re in a second hand book shop, look for the title, “The Mind of a Mnemonist”. It’s a true story, of a man who suffered a brain injury, during a war, and developed a memory, so vast, it was unmeasurable. Awesome read.
Similarly, somewhere in my stack of old Fortean Times is a story about a person whose OCD was makedly improved after he shot himself in the head in a suicide attempt.
I’m a bit late to the party, but this is an interesting topic and I have an anecdotal data point that may apply and be of interest…
As an infant, my youngest daughter, Haley (not her real name) lagged somewhat behind on her milestone benchmarks—not quite enough to warrant more than a “let’s keep an eye on this” assessment from her pediatrician, but enough to heighten my awareness of her mental development. Of greater concern to me, in contradistinction to her older sister at similar age, was that Haley did not appear very “engaged” with her surroundings—even her eyes seemed somewhat vacant to me. No one else expressed awareness of this, so I kept it to myself, figuring I was either wrong, or that it was something minor she’d simply outgrow.
At 14-months old, on Christmas Eve of all times, while battling a bad bout of flu, Haley had a stroke, leaving her paralyzed on the left side of her body—complete hemiparesis. The vacancy in her eyes deepened, and it was apparent now to others besides me.
She was admitted to the hospital and a whirlwind of specialists, tests and brain scans followed until we got a definitive diagnosis. The relief of finally knowing the cause of a cerebrovascular accident in someone so young was soon dampened when we learned more about the diagnosis and prognosis. She was born with Moyamoya, a rare congenital disease that adversely affects the arteries to the brain (Moyamoya: Japenese for “puff of smoke”, the appearance, on angiogram, of the tangle of small collateral vessels at the base of the brain formed in an attempt to counteract the blockage of larger vessels). Scans also revealed older brain necrosis, indicating she’s had at least one prior stroke—in utero. Prognosis: without two complicated brain surgeries (same procedure on both brain hemispheres, one week apart), our daughter would likely have additional, progressively more severe strokes until brain death at a young age.
We wasted no time locating arguably the world’s best brain surgeon specializing in Moyamoya revascularization. Haley would be traveling north to Children’s Hospital Boston for the operations, but the surgeon insisted on a 3-month delay, in order for her brain to stabilize from the most recent CVA. Those three months seemed like three decades, wondering whether she’d have another stroke before being operated on. She didn’t. In fact, on the train trip north, she made a valiant attempt to pull herself up on two feet, something we hadn’t seen her do since before the stroke.
The first operation went without incident or complication. In recovery, the post-op team said, “try to keep your daughter as calm as possible when she wakes up. We’re very limited on the post-op meds we can safely give her, and if her blood pressure shoots too high…that could be…a problem”. I needed no explanation of what was implied by “a problem”.
The 8 or so hours after waking from anesthesia were perhaps the worst hours of my life. Haley was disoriented, frightened and writhing in pain. I tried my best to calm her and keep her supine, but I was not successful in doing either. I was flabbergasted that a 1 ½ y.o. was overpowering a grown man. The nursing staff was as accommodating and professional as they could be, but could do nothing but shake their heads and shrug when I’d ask for more pain killers and anti-anxiety medication for my daughter (every 15 minutes or so). It was a long night, but she made it through unscathed and without stroking-out. The second operation the following week was equally successful (with an equally frightening post-op period) and a week after that it was time to take the train back home.
The girl we brought back to Florida was not the same one we brought to Boston. Within days Haley was toddling on her feet once again. Over the next few months, she regained nearly all function to the left side of her body. Today, she has only moderate left foot drop and weakness in her left hand as the only (known) physical sequalae of her strokes, and these are things rehabilitation and possibly tendon transfer surgery should minimalize even more, down the road. So, on the physical side of the equation, brain damage from stroke resulted in a minor physical net loss.
Interestingly, on the cognitive side of the equation, I believe there was a net gain. There’s no way to tell how her mind would have developed and functioned had her brain not incurred damage from strokes. And there’s no way to tell how much revascularization surgery positively affected her brain function and counteracted the debilitating effects of her condition. But, I believe both occurrences (brain damage followed by re-oxygenation at a critical time), resulted in her mind becoming “greater” in some ways than the mind that would have developed in a non-damaged brain. Let me explain…
The first thing I noticed after our return was that the vacancy in our daughter’s eyes was gone, in fact they now appeared to flicker with a depth of perception and understanding beyond her years. She also became significantly more engaged with the world—perhaps making up for lost time. Was I reading too much into these admittedly subjective signs? Perhaps.
We had a scare one day, months later. Going from the cool air of a movie theater to the slap-in-the-face heat of a typical Florida summer day, Haley collapsed in seizure and lost consciousness. She didn’t regain consciousness for almost 30 minutes, in the ambulance. Brain scans revealed no additional hemorrhagic necrosis of brain tissue; they concluded that this latest incident, as opposed to the Christmas Eve incident, was just a non-degenerative TIA. Additional tests revealed faulty brain thermoregulation—something we’d have to guard against in the future. Treatment Plan: A baby aspirin once a day for the rest of her life for anticoagulation, keep pressure up at all times with good hydration, no extreme temperature gradients and no deep exhalations (guess she won’t be playing any brass or woodwind instruments in band). She’s had no seizures or loss of consciousness since that day, knock on wood. Of interest was the neurology consultation from that hospital stay. The neurologist made a point to meet with us at discharge. He said, *“I want to follow up with your daughter in our clinic, not only to make sure she continues to thrive, but I’m also very interested in her cognitive development—she’s a delight to talk to and unusually advanced in what she talks about. I think she’s very special.” *
Shorty after starting Kindergarten, Haley’s teacher visited us at home and told us she believed our daughter was gifted (with a gifted daughter of her own, she felt qualified to make that assessment at such an early age) and recommended that we get her tested early for placement in the schools gifted program starting the following year. We did have her tested and, according to the school principal who gave us the results, she scored the highest they’ve seen in our district. “Gifted of the gifted”, he said. She’s excelled academically in the program ever since. The main theme of teacher conferences is that Haley doesn’t think like other kids, but she always arrives at the correct answer—more quickly than her classmates and seemingly with no effort. They also mention that although her penmanship is subpar due to weakness in her left hand, they find it interesting that she often switches to her right hand with ease and equal results (she’s also a switch hitter in softball).
Her report cards are not without shortcomings and each tells a similar story: academically: superior; socially: “talks too much in class”, “disrupts her classmates”, “always the class clown”…
I can’t bring myself to chastise my daughter for her classroom social peccadilloes—in fact, deep down, I’m as proud of them as I am of her cognitive abilities. From a being with vacant eyes, she’s blossomed into someone who appears to live life on a higher plane than most. To the annoyance of her older sister (a gifted child herself, though to a lesser degree, but quite shy and somewhat reserved), Haley makes fast friends…with everyone!—kids, grownups and animals of all type. She nearly forces her personality on everyone she meets, but in such an endearing way, she draws them tightly into her sphere.
Wherever we go, sometimes many miles from home, people we don’t know recognize Haley and make it a point to talk to her, then tell us what a remarkable daughter we have. Then, when they’ve departed, Haley gives us the low down on them: “oh, thats Mathew’s Aunt, she has a three year old beagle who had 5 puppies last year…blah, blah, blah” Her mother and I combined have been on Earth many decades longer than Haley, yet she has a list of friends and acquaintances much longer than ours.
She has a deep bond with animals. The times I’m most afraid for her safety is when she see’s someone walking a dog on the opposite side of the street. She makes a beeline for the dog as fast as she can (pretty fast for someone with foot drop). Always polite: “may I pet your dog?”, and usually overstaying her welcome: “our dog is a schnoodle and she…blah, blah, blah.” I usually have to go over and attempt to pry her away from the situation…but, more often than not, the dog owner wants to talk more with our “fascinating” daughter.
I’m used to being peppered with questions from an inquisitive child, namely by our oldest daughter, who’s heavy into science and mathematics. It’s of a magnitude of order higher with Haley, however. If she has a question about something, she’s never satisfied with the basics, she wants to know that thing completely—digging deeper and deeper with her line of questioning. Typically, she gets to a point beyond my level of understanding, and I finally, exasperatingly, tell her, “you ask too many questions!”, or “isn’t it past your bedtime”, or when she really makes me feel stupid, “I bet your mother doesn’t know the answer either”.
Perhaps the thing I’m most perplexed about in Haley is her sense of humor and wit. She simply “gets” things she should not get at her age. Subtleties of higher forms of humor do not elude her in the least. She’s one of the funniest people I know, not kid funny, but just plain funny.
On review, I can see where it may be construed that I’ve engaged in something I typically find pretentious and gauche—bragging on ones kids. There may be some glimmer of truth to that accusation, I concede. But, given the piss poor hand that my daughter was dealt at the beginning of her life, I think the way she’s parlayed that into a winning hand deserves an accolade or two by her father.
As far as how I envision the process leading to my daughters current mind and how it relates to the OP: I believe her two or three strokes resulted in significant brain damage in cognitive as well as somatic portions of her brain. Damaged at such an embryonic age (the in-utero strokes in particular), allowed for new (and improved?) synaptic neuronal pathways to develop in compensation for the damaged brain tissue (in similar fashion to the collateral blood vessels grown in compensation for the damaged larger vessels in her brain). The revascularization, resulting from the surgeries, was probably done at a critical time, a time when the new synaptic pathways, adjusted to low blood levels, could benefit greatly from the “pump prime” of relative hyperoxygenation.
But, that’s just my theory.
Thank you for taking the time to write that out, Tibbytoes, that was both facinating and uplifting.
There is also this story about the “icepick lobotomies” from the past. Naturally, many lives were marred by them, but others also say that the subjects’ dispositions improved greatly. The narrator, who himself had the procedure done as a child seems pretty normal, considering he had sharp objects twirled around in his frontal lobe.
NPR story here.
Well, if I were feeling a little blue, and a bit short on time, I’d certainly put my frontal lobe in the deft hands of Dr. Freeman—the P.T. Barnum of lobotomists! :eek:
Wow, Tibbytoes, I got tears in my eyes reading about your lovely daughter. She has the ‘spark’, and a wonderful, eloquent dad to boot.