A boy born with 2 per cent brain capacity has amazed medical professionals when a scan revealed the organ had grown up to 80 per cent of its original size within three years.
The Sun reported that doctors believed there was no brain developed at all, but after another brain scan, medical staff were shocked to find that the brain was at 80 per cent capacity.
Medical professionals initially thought there was little chance for Noah Wall, of Cumbria in the UK, to survive due to his spina bifida and hydrocephalus conditions. However, the plucky youngster, who recently appeared on TV show Good Morning Britain with his parents Shelley and Rob, is now six years old.
Noah’s brain at birth was simply squashed into a small space and he was issued a shunt to help drain excess fluid from the brain.
Because the shunt was placed in the boy’s head, the brain was given the opportunity to grow into that space.
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Doctors also suggested that Noah would have severe mental challenges, which included not being able to talk, see, hear, or eat.
But at the age of six, Noah was capable of all of that and has even managed to go surfing.
“Even if his brain had been so squashed up, he’d be severely mentally disabled because of all that damage and look at him – he’s as bright as a button,” said Noah’s father Rob.
There’s no current scientific explanation in how Noah’s brain grew from 2 per cent to 80 per cent in the space of three years, but there are studies that determine an infant’s normal growth trajectory of individual parts of the brain.
BBC News journalist Smitha Mundasad reported that new born brains grew at an average rate of 1 per cent a day, slowing at 0.4 per cent at the end of the 90-day period in a study.
Researchers scanned 187 healthy babies from birth to three months, a study that was led by scientists at the University of California to help better understand early disorders.
The cerebellum, an area of the brain that controls movement was reported to have the highest rate of growth, doubled in size after the 90-day period.
The report also suggested that babies born earlier were at 4 per cent smaller than babies born on time.
Though babies born earlier showed growths at a quicker rate, the report said their brains were still 2 per cent smaller at the end of the three months.
An article published in the NeuroQuantology in July 2018, written by J. Shashi Kiran Reddy (National Institute of Advance Studies) and Contzen Pereira (Doctor of Philosophy) reported their understandings of how Noah grew his brain through a Neuro-Quantum perspective.
The article proposes that the power of free will was not only a psychological intervention but “a biological and quantum intervention where we have a capacity to make choices about what direction we will take, making a change to the systematic functioning of our body”.
“Noah’s brain stem triggered the growth of his brain, which began demonstrating several cognitive functions associated with his upper body, as compared to the severely impaired paralyzed lower body functions (due to the spina bifida).”
The article said Noah’s case “demonstrates his willpower that made a choice to survive, which resulted in the growth of his brain which situates an example of understanding free will and choice from a neuro-quantum mechanics interpretation”.