Title : Hypothesizing the Central Nervous Systems Genius to Trigger and Self-organize to Higher States of Complexity as Epitomized in the Case of Noah Wall the Boy Born With Only 2% of His Brain
Abstract:
Noah was born with an estimated 2% of his brain as the result of a cephalic disorder, with the remainder of his cranial cavity being filled with cerebrospinal fluid. This signifies an extreme case of Hydranencephaly. Hydranencephaly is a condition that affects under 1 in 10,000 births worldwide. Infants born with Hydranencephaly may appear quite normal at first but commonly begin to display significant irritable symptoms after a few weeks which develop into a host of physical and intellectual impairments. The prognosis for children with hydranencephaly is generally quite poor, however many children live for several years right into adulthood.
However Noah’s brain remarkably redeveloped to an estimated 80% within 3 years, defying all medical predictions for Noah’s future. Now at 6 years of age Noah’s psychophysical development continues to systematically evolve and he has become an interactive international media personality. Yet the case of Noah Wall challenges us in many ways as there are many questions that beg to be answered scientifically, for well in advance of the required expression of vital regions of the brain historically deemed to be absolutely necessary for sensory motor processing, expression of needs, emotions, associative memory, verbal and non-verbal communication, Noah was able to physically and emotionally respond to environmental cues without the extreme sensory motor deficits that our present scientific wisdom predicted would have left him severely mentally and physically disabled.
While we ponder possible answers to explain such extreme compensatory sensory motor phenomena, we must also determine what inspired Noah’s brain to grow. In this presentation I will firstly share what my experiences where in assessing and observing Noah and the rapid transitions which took place under controlled therapeutic conditions. I will then provide a hypothesis referring to a variety of scientific disciplines and theories attempting to reverse engineer and express the unprecedented growth of Noah’s brain from a mere 2% to 80% in 3 years and why he could respond to his environment so well despite the absence of developed brain regions.
