The Man Who Mistook The Brain Case Study

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The relationship between brain and mind was studied by Broca in 1861 when he looked at patients with left hemisphere damage. However, Freud felt that by mapping functions to the different areas of the brain was too simple and there must be “equally complex physiological basis” (Sacks, 2011, P.3) Brain defects should be seen as problems caused by either replacing, restoring or compensating rather than a loss of brain function. Many people believe that damage to the brain can remove “abstract and categorical attitude” and removing the individual from emotions is wrong. A clear example of this is in “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat” where he in fact does the opposite.

Within the “Man Who Mistook his Wife for A Hat” Dr. P was a musician …show more content…

Within this case Jimmie G who was 49 showed fantastic ability and could solve complicated problems on intelligence testing. Jimmie was in the navy and in 1965 lost the structure within his life which lead to excessive drinking resulting in alcoholic destruction of the mammillary bodies which became life changing in 1971. This resulted in retrograde amnesia and erasing his memories after 1945 and his abilities to form new memoirs as well resulting in Jimmie believing he was 19 and now only being able to recognise his brother. Dr. Sacks suggested Jimmie to visit the recreation program after finding that short puzzles and games kept him occupied. Soon after however he was able to complete the puzzles and games with no effort at all. Although the last two cases show heightened responses in other areas it is not always the case in the “Disembodied …show more content…

This type of neurological disorder then follows suit into other stories such as “The Man Who Fell Out of Bed” and the “Hands” Story. These two stories are similar with the patient in “The Man Who Fell Out of Bed” believed his leg did not belong to him and calls it a “foreign leg”. Whilst in the “Hands” story Madeleine age 60 is blind with cerebral palsy and found her hands useless lumps of dough. However, in Madeline’s case all her sensory capacities where intact and she was able to restore full sensation in her hands by tricking her into grabbing food when she was

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