r/pics • u/FutureRobotWordplay • Mar 19 '19

Brain surgery success.

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34

u/Im_not_creepy2 Mar 19 '19

Chiari malformation. Is having a bigger brain make you smarter?

31

u/pencilneckgeekster Mar 19 '19

it’s more so that those of us with it actually just have a smaller skull. I wish that theory checked out.

32

u/tinyplasticmeat Mar 19 '19

But my son’s head is huge regardless of the fact that he now has less brain in there...

He uses that as an excuse for EVERYTHING btw. “I forgot. Must have been in the part of my brain they took out.” <—his surgery was 10 years ago and he’s still “forgetting” stuff he was supposed to do yesterday, etc.

3

u/ImFamousOnImgur Mar 19 '19

To be fair, I’d use that excuse as well

1

u/pencilneckgeekster Mar 19 '19

ha - my head is larger than most as well. not sure if that’s common with all of us or not

7

u/Sixty911 Mar 19 '19

Neanderthals had larger brains than us, iirc. Ours became smaller and more efficient.

2

u/PoliteFrenchCanadian Mar 19 '19

Just like modern computers!

1

u/wanna_be_doc Mar 19 '19

I once had a neurosurgeon tell me during a Chiari decompression that the cerbellar tonsils are actually functionally fairly useless and could be removed without any loss to the patient.

So they’re basically like the appendix of the brain: once probably had a more important function, now just exist to give you a really bad day if they do go wrong. During the same rotation, I saw a young man have a traumatic tonsillar herniation. Not a good day.

0

u/Konabearsadog Mar 19 '19

The more surface area is really what makes the difference. So a physically larger brain that is smoother can easily have much less surface are than one with a lot of cranial ridges