ftao squad

[mollykins]

i know i shouldn't believe everything i read, but in 'the hair of the dog and other scientific curpirses' i came across an essay about people with hydrocefalis who when they were older, were just as clever or of above average intelligence, but their brains had been reduced in size. It doesn't say if they had shunts and stuff for the fluid, but my mum reckons that it happened to them because the fluid was compressing on their brain, because they had no means of getting rid of it, which i do. so if they did have, would they not have had brains that shrunk?

[Sqad]

molly....I have read this over and over again, but I cannot understand what you are getting at............the size of the brain is dependant upon many things, one of which is the extent of the fluid. The greater the fluid, the greater the brain shrinkage and hence the degree of intelligence which is not necessarily the only factor in intelligence.

[mollykins]

I don't fully understand what the book says but it sounds like the fluid compressed the brain, making it denser, because they had hydrocefalis but no means of getting rid of the fluid.

[mollykins]

they had mri and cat scans and an autopsy when they died.