When a person has sustained trauma to the communication center of the brain via injury, surgery or stroke and cannot communicate, does the person think in words?
I ask because two weeks ago my grandpa had a malignant tumor removed from his left temporal lobe. Before surgery, when working with the speech pathologist, he was a bit slow with remembering certain words, and he would use the wrong word, ie “tea” instead of “cream of wheat.” He would also have a hard time connecting names with corresponding objects.
Since surgery, his communication has made a dramatic decline. The cause of this probably isn’t due to swelling as he’s on steroids to combat that. I’m not sure if the decline is a sign of the cancer spreading. He doesn’t really understand what we say to him, although he does seem to pick up on a few words here and there. Most of what he says is “Yeah,” but when he does recognize the words he hears, he repeats them. By the way, his reading skills are excellent, and he does play visual matching games well.
For the past few days, I’ve been wondering: Since the incoming/outgoing messages aren’t making connections, does he still think using language? Or does he think in “silent movie” mode? I don’t know much about the brain, but I do know that different areas specialize in different tasks. As I understand, the human brain is such a terribly complex organ, even neurologists don’t know all there is to know about it.
Anyway, if there is anyone who knows brains, I’d like to hear your thoughts.
Mods, if there is no factual answer to this question please accept my apologies and move to the correct forum.
Bumping to see if the evening dopers can enlighten me.
Maybe it’s just a stupid OP…
Interesting question, but I’m not sure it’s answerable…how would we know for certain that a person’s brain wasn’t using words for thoughts anymore, when anything that would cause that kind of brain malfunction would leave the patient unable to write or speak?
Great…now my head’s spinning.
Thanks for the reply, Ranchoth. I guess I was hoping someone new of a study pertaining to my question. But who am I kidding- reading a scientific report would only confuse my feeble mind further and I’d probably have to have someone translate the damned thing. I’ll let this thread die now.
While this really doesn’t answer your question at all, it is sort of related.
According to Julian Jaynes in “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” (breathe), there are speech centers on the left and right side of the brain, however the right side is usually vestigial except in a few ambidextrous people. I’d even imagine that in some cases, when one side is damaged the body is able to adapt the second side for the same purposes. (Apparently a large part of the right hemisphere of the brain is just redundant).
It depends on what, exactly, is injured.
When my mother had her stroke she lost her ability to speak intelligibly and read, but apparently retained the ability to understand spoken words. Therapy allowed her to recover her speaking and reading and she then confirmed she could understand everything said to her, but she wasn’t able to get her own words out.
It’s also possible to retain the ability to speak understandibly but lose the ability to understand spoken words.
A neurologist who carefully examined your uncle might be able to determine the precise nature of his impairment, but it may be too soon after the surgery to know for sure where he’ll end up as far as abilities go. But yes, it’s possible he can still think in words, but can’t get them out. Or maybe he’s just thinking visually right now. If he can still read then I’d think it’s a problem with the part of the brain that converts thought in spoken language, but IANAD and there’s no way to tell from the other side of the keyboard anyhow.
Man… Sorry if I’m coming off as a grouch. Lack of sleep on top of stress and worry isn’t good for my mood.
Thanks for the replies.
That’s interesting,** xgxlx**. The part about the right hemisphere being redundant- the neurologist said that the right half is the “stupid” part of the brain. I’m surprised to find that it does much of anything in even a small percentage of the population.
Broomstick- I bet you were glad when your mom acknowleged that she could understand incoming messages. I would imagine she was frustrated with not being able to communicate back to you.
All this thinking about the complexities of the brain is making my own brain hurt.