Sunday 6 September 2020
It was coincidence that Clara and I wore black cloth facemasks, the same as those worn by the undertakers, but it seemed fitting at a funeral during the covid-19 pandemic. A sort of modern-day version of the plague.
I won’t dwell on the proceedings other than to say that my father-in-law was buried on an appropriately chilly and overcast day after a simple but moving church service attended by extended family and a number of his erstwhile parishioners. A fitting end to the long life of a thoroughly decent person.
Our trip to the Wirral for a couple of days last week was one for reflection but the long train journey also gave me time to read a book: Life Lessons from a Brain Surgeon by Dr Rahul Jandial. Written by a leading specialist in brain tumours based in Los Angeles, it’s a slightly strange mix of stories from the operating theatre, popular neuroscience, and self-improvement guide but nevertheless is an engaging and worthwhile read.
Dr Jandial presents brain surgery as an adrenaline rush along the lines of something like free climbing: one false move in a procedure lasting several hours could spell disaster. Apparently, the popular perception of brain surgery being the most elite medical specialisation, taking only the smartest apprentices, is true. Brain surgeons really are very clever, the best of the best, but they also need to be ice cool under pressure.
I always knew the human brain is an astonishing product of millions of years of evolution, but here are five remarkable things I learned from Dr Jandial’s book:
- You can have brain surgery whilst awake
If someone cracks your skull open, you certainly feel it, but once inside, the brain itself has no pain receptors and doesn’t feel anything. This leads to the amazing possibility of waking up a patient once their brain is exposed and operating whilst talking to them. This is useful for instance when a tumour is close to the areas of the brain that process language: the surgeon can temporarily numb the areas he is thinking of removing and check that the patient’s speech or ability to understand language isn’t affected before proceeding. Once the tumour has been removed, the patient is put back under again whilst the skull is closed.
- Left brain/right brain is a myth
Remember all that stuff about the left side of your brain being the logical, analytical side and the right side being the creative, artistic side? And that one side is dominant? Apparently this stems from a 1973 article in the New York Times Magazine and it quickly became a widely accepted truth. Only it’s been comprehensively demonstrated to be untrue. There are some specialist areas of the brain, like language processing, that are found only on one side, but the notion of “right-brained” and “left-brained” is simply wrong.
- Bilingual children have significantly more developed brains
If as parents, you speak more than one language, then try to raise your children as bilingual. It turns out that people who are bilingual have better attention spans, learn faster and, surprisingly, are at lower risk of dementia later in life.
- You can function with only half a brain
This one is truly remarkable. In rare cases of severe epilepsy, the electrical activity on one side of the brain is erratic and the only known cure is to amputate the troublesome side, in a procedure known as a hemispherectomy. When performed on adults, removing half the brain can have a significant impact on the ability to control one side of the body, but when performed on children, such is the brain’s neuroplasticity – its ability to adapt – that it will often rewire itself to regain full control. Yes, there are people out there functioning normally with literally only half a brain.
- Anyone can suffer from a neurodegenerative disease but there’s a
lot you can do to lower the risk
Until we find cures for different types of dementia and various neurological diseases, our best bet is to lead healthy, active lives. Exercise is well known to slow down the onset and progression of Parkinson’s for example. Keeping socially and mentally active are both connected with reduced risk of developing dementia. Stimulating and using your body and mind, and having a large social network won’t guarantee that you won’t get afflicted in later life (think of Margaret Thatcher’s dementia), but it will lower your chances.
The last point certainly merits attention. It's a triumph of nutrition and medicine that so many of us now live to our 70s, 80s and beyond. But nobody wants to lose their mental faculties, or their identity, in old age.
Clara’s Dad led a healthy life – both physically and mentally – for 94 years.
He was lucid right up until the end.
