A young man I know on the train was interviewed on a National Public Radio program about his unusual brain and what scientists are learning from it.
Jonathan was born without a cerebellum. His father, Richard, who also used to take the train, told me how he worked with Jonathan from his earliest days to prove the doctors wrong about what he would be able to do in life.
Jon Hamilton writes at NPR, “Since his birth 33 years ago, Jonathan Keleher has been living without a cerebellum, a structure that usually contains about half the brain’s neurons. This exceedingly rare condition has left Jonathan with a distinctive way of speaking and a walk that is slightly awkward. He also lacks the balance to ride a bicycle.
“But all that hasn’t kept him from living on his own, holding down an office job [at the Institute for Community Inclusion] and charming pretty much every person he meets. …
“Jonathan is also making an important contribution to neuroscience. By allowing scientists to study him and his brain, he is helping to change some long-held misconceptions about what the cerebellum does. And that, in turn, could help the hundreds of thousands of people whose cerebellums have been damaged by a stroke, infection or disease.
“For decades, the cerebellum has been the ‘Rodney Dangerfield of the brain,’ says Dr. Jeremy Schmahmann, a professor of neurology at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital. It gets no respect because most scientists only know about its role in balance and fine motor control. …
“Research on Jonathan and people like him supports the idea that the cerebellum really has just one job: It takes clumsy actions or functions and makes them more refined. ‘It doesn’t make things. It makes things better,’ Schmahmann says.
“That’s pretty straightforward when it comes to movement. The brain’s motor cortex tells your legs to start walking. The cerebellum keeps your stride smooth and steady and balanced.
” ‘What we now understand is what that cerebellum is doing to movement, it’s also doing to intellect and personality and emotional processing,’ Schmahmann says.
“Unless you don’t have a cerebellum. Then, Schmahmann says, a person’s thinking and emotions can become as clumsy as their movements. …
“His sister, Sarah Napoline, [says] her brother is a great listener, but isn’t introspective. …
“Jonathan also needed to be taught a lot of things that people with a cerebellum learn automatically, Sarah says: how to speak clearly, how to behave in social situations and how to show emotion.
“Yet Jonathan is now able to do all of those things. He’s done it by training other areas of his brain to do the jobs usually done by the cerebellum, Schmahmann says.
“It’s taken decades, Richard says. He adds that it couldn’t have happened at all if his son were less resilient and determined.”
Read more at NPR, here.
Photo: Ellen Webber for NPR
Jonathan Keleher is one of a handful of people who have lived their entire lives without a cerebellum.
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