girlscandoanything

Brain Scan Trauma

Tonight in class we looked at a bunch of scans that show brain activity--or, often, inactivity--in different people with different disorders. The question that now haunts me is, "what do you do when your brain doesn't work?" My brain does not work. We looked at the brain of an addict, the brain of a person with ADHD, and the brain of a person with PTSD. I am all of these people. So the odds of any portion of my brain being working at the appropriate level is slim to none.

There were big holes in the image where no blood was flowing in the frontal section of the ADHD brain. The addict brain just looked like Swiss cheese with several areas showing no activity whatsoever. The brain of one with post traumatic stress actually was too active in certain sections. If you add those together you get a big chaotic lump where a healthy brain ought to be.

So now what?

Is there hope for my brain? Apparently the answer is yes. Experts in neurology talk about the fact that the brain can adapt itself and can create new neuropathways to bypass the parts of the brain that have been adversely affected. But if that is the case, who really cares if your brain looks like Swiss cheese?

On one hand it is good to know the way my brain functions. On the other hand, I am more disturbed about the quality of my brain than I have been ever before. It is disturbing to contemplate that your brain is somehow substandard or less than healthy. And if my brain is substandard or unhealthy, what does that say about the brains of millions of people who have less education and sensibility than myself? Can a messed up brain actually be capable of achieving graduate degrees and wrestling with philosophical concepts and teaching others and proclaiming the Word of God? I suppose it must be capable of such. But if it is capable of such, is it fair to understand it as messed up in the first place?

I think that my brain works just fine. I seem to get by alright with the brain I've got, whether or not it is normal. I will not worry about it until it fails me.

posted by CT @ 11:57 PM