Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Loss of left hemisphere followed by near-total recovery AND advanced artistic skill


In 2008, a young Russian woman Taisia Sidorova had a severe car accident that caused so much damage to her skull and brain, that surgeons removed the entire left hemisphere of the brain, and rebuilt her skull.  (Thanks to nhne-pulse.org for story.)  She was in a coma and expected to die.  However, with a lot of support from her family, she emerged from the coma, and healed remarkably.

It sounds like her family put a tremendous amount of energy into prayer, massage, and talking to her.  It’s not entirely clear from the original Daily Mail article, but it sounds like she had to gradually re-build her speech and movement.  But that’s not all!

Ms. Sidorova had never had any interest in drawing before her accident.  She started to sketch as a form of therapy for fine motor skills during her recovery.  Three years after the accident, she also paints.  Her art teacher says Ms. Sidorova’s artistic ability before and after the accident is like comparing two different people.  She now has a natural talent, and is at the top of her class.

One of the doctors who treated her commented:  “The human brain is a remarkable thing — in her case the part that remains seems to have developed to compensate for the missing part — and at the same time given her a previously undiscovered talent for art.”

Of course, as someone who has gone through neuro damage myself, I would never wish this path on anyone, but it’s so fascinating and heartening to see how neurological damage can make astonishing neurological development both necessary and possible that might not have happened otherwise.  This may be an aspect of what happens when psychic opening follows a neurological incident.

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