Buzz
The human brain is a fascinating organ. It’s perfect for passing the time, chatting with nature, and solving some of the most complicated challenges humanity has ever faced. At the same time, it’s an incredibly enigmatic mass of gray matter capable of surviving the wildest accidents, uncovering the mysteries of the universe, and turning against us in an instant. Without a doubt, our small gray cells contain enough secrets and bizarre stories to fill an entire book… or a list, for that matter.
10. The Murderer Saved by Brain Scans
John McCluskey wasn’t a pleasant individual. After escaping from an Arizona prison, he murdered an elderly couple, burned their bodies, and stole their truck. Eventually, McCluskey was caught again, tried, and convicted of murder. However, the sentencing phase proved to be more complicated. McCluskey’s defense team had used an unconventional approach that left the jurors unsure of how to proceed. They had presented brain scans of McCluskey, and the images were undoubtedly strange.
The PET scans revealed 10 regions of McCluskey’s brain that were oddly inactive. In contrast, 17 areas were overactive. For instance, his amygdala struggled to interpret danger signals and frequently sent “false alarms” throughout the brain, leading to impulsive behavior. Normally, the frontal lobe keeps the amygdala’s erratic tendencies in check, but McCluskey’s was malformed and defective, allowing his more extreme impulses to dominate. The defense also pointed out that his cerebellum had been damaged by a stroke, impairing his ability to plan. Essentially, he was a victim of faulty biology, incapable of premeditated murder. The Haas killings had been spontaneous and beyond McCluskey’s control.
Despite the prosecution’s arguments, the defense team achieved its goal. The jury couldn’t reach a verdict on whether McCluskey should receive the death penalty, leading to a life sentence without the possibility of parole. McCluskey’s brain had spared him from the death sentence. However, this outcome raises several thought-provoking questions. Should abnormal brain conditions be considered mitigating factors, or should they be seen as proof of dangerous tendencies? And where does free will fit into this equation? We leave it up to you to ponder.
9. The Curious Journey of Einstein’s Brain
Albert Einstein was undeniably a genius, and many of us have often wondered, 'What made his brain so extraordinary?' Pathologist Thomas Harvey shared this curiosity and set out to find the answer. If that meant bending a few rules along the way, so be it.
Before his death in 1955, Einstein had requested that his remains be cremated. The last thing he wanted was for his tomb to become a shrine, with groups of devoted students chanting "E = mc" over and over. The only way to prevent his body from becoming a revered relic was to have it reduced to ashes. This also included his brain.
However, Thomas Harvey didn’t care about Einstein’s wishes. Claiming to have permission from Princeton Hospital—which he didn’t—Harvey took Einstein’s brain during the autopsy. Unsurprisingly, this was a huge violation. In danger of losing his job, Harvey convinced Einstein’s son to give his approval for the operation, claiming the brain needed to be studied for scientific purposes. However, Harvey wasn’t a neuroscientist and lacked the expertise to handle the brain properly. When hospital officials demanded the brain back, he refused and was promptly fired. Harvey then drove to Philadelphia, where he found a technician who helped him slice Einstein’s brain into over 200 pieces.
For the next 40 years, those little pieces of Einstein’s brain ended up in some very odd places. Harvey stored them in jars in his basement, where they nearly met their demise at the hands of his wife. When Harvey moved to Kansas, he kept the pieces in a box under a beer cooler. They were often admired by "Naked Lunch" author William Burroughs, and on one occasion, Harvey accidentally left the pieces at Einstein’s granddaughter’s house, much to her displeasure.
As for any scientific breakthroughs… that never quite happened. Harvey sent pieces of the brain to various researchers, but most neurologists weren’t interested in studying it. The few scientists who did look at the brain published studies that were largely inconclusive, criticized, or dismissed. Disheartened, Harvey eventually returned the brain to Princeton Hospital and died in 2007. No one ever attempted to steal his brain.
8. The Man Who Stuck His Head in a Particle Accelerator
Anatoli Bugorski might be the luckiest scientist ever. On July 13, 1978, the Soviet researcher was working on a particle accelerator known as the Synchrotron U-70. While trying to fix a malfunctioning piece of equipment, he made a mistake that could’ve been straight out of a comedy sketch. As he was fiddling with the machine, Bugorski accidentally stuck his head into the accelerator and directly into the path of a proton beam.
Proton beams, made of hydrogen atoms without electrons, are commonly used to destroy cancer cells, but only in precisely controlled amounts. A dose of just over five grays (a measure of ionizing radiation) can typically turn humans into irradiated toast. When the proton beam hit Bugorski, it delivered about 2,000 grays. When it exited near the left side of his nose, it exploded out at a whopping 3,000 grays.
As the proton beam passed through his skull, it burned a hole in Bugorski’s brain. Though painless, he described seeing a flash “brighter than a thousand suns.” After staggering away from the machine, the left side of his face swelled dramatically. Later, the skin around the entry and exit points peeled off, and Bugorski lost hearing in his left ear. Despite all this, the Soviet scientist survived, possibly because the proton beam was traveling almost at the speed of light.
Despite his incredible luck, Bugorski eventually lost all feeling in the left side of his face and became partially paralyzed. The proton beam also impacted his mental abilities, though not as severely as one might expect. Despite these challenges, Bugorski earned a PhD and is still alive today, proving that it takes much more than a proton beam to take down a Russian.
7. The Artist Who Lost a Piece of His Brain
The stroke left doctors with no choice but to remove a section of the left side of Sarkin’s brain, which led to a dramatic change in his personality. Suddenly, Jon was consumed by an intense urge to draw, a passion that took over his life. Back at his chiropractic practice, he found himself sketching strange shapes, cacti, and bizarre faces between appointments. During dinner, he would stop eating to write down ideas that came to mind. It turned out that Jon had developed an incredibly rare condition known as “sudden artistic output,” which has only been recorded in three other cases triggered by brain injury.
However, this brain injury made many starving artists envious. In 1993, Sarkin sold eight of his drawings to *The New Yorker*, left his chiropractic career behind, and opened his own art studio. Since then, his work has been featured in *The New York Times* and *The Boston Globe*. His story was bought by Tom Cruise’s production company, and he became the subject of a book written by a Pulitzer Prize–winning author. If you want to buy one of Jon’s pieces, be prepared to pay over $10,000 per canvas. When it comes to stroke side effects, this one is certainly financially rewarding.
139746827
6. The Man With Nearly No Brain
The brain doesn’t just control every aspect of our lives—it operates under extreme pressure, sometimes quite literally. Take, for example, the 2003 case of an unnamed French man whose extraordinary story was published in *The Lancet*. Since his identity was kept confidential, let’s refer to him as Jacques.
Jacques was a married man with two children, working as a civil servant in Marseille. One day, he felt weakness in his left leg and went to a local hospital. As the doctors examined his medical history, they discovered that when Jacques was a baby, he had suffered from hydrocephalus—a condition where excess fluid builds up in the brain. Although the fluid had been drained, the doctors decided to conduct some scans to check if his problem had a neurological cause.
What they uncovered was astounding. The majority of Jacques’s head was filled with fluid. Typically, the human brain is safeguarded by lateral ventricles, structures filled with cerebrospinal fluid that cushion the brain. Fluid flows through these chambers regularly, but in Jacques’s case, the fluid wasn’t draining. Over time, this caused the lateral ventricles to enlarge, resulting in his brain being squashed into a thin layer. Doctors estimated that his brain mass had been reduced by 50–70 percent, impairing the areas responsible for motion, language, emotions, and essentially everything else.
Surprisingly, Jacques was perfectly fine. Although his IQ was only 75, he wasn’t intellectually impaired. He held a stable job, raised a family, and had no issues with social interactions. Over time, his brain had adapted to the overwhelming pressure, and despite having fewer neurons than most, Jacques remained a fully functional individual. And don’t worry, his leg recovered as well. After doctors inserted a shunt and drained the fluid, his leg returned to normal. His brain, though still small, proved that you don’t need to be a genius to work in government.
5. The Mentally Ill Man Who Healed Himself With a Gun
George (whose last name remains unknown) suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a condition so severe that it made Howard Hughes's struggles seem mild. In the 1980s, George was a diligent Canadian high school student when he suddenly developed an extreme fear of germs. He began washing his hands obsessively and taking multiple showers every day. Despite numerous visits to the hospital, George couldn't control his condition and was eventually forced to leave school and quit his part-time job.
In 1983, George took matters into his own hands. Feeling depressed and immobilized by his fears, he confided in his mother, telling her that he couldn't continue living this way. As a concerned mother, she responded, 'If your life is so miserable, just go ahead and shoot yourself.' And so, George did just that. He grabbed a pistol, placed it in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
The bullet pierced his skull and struck his left frontal lobe—the area of the brain that controlled his OCD. Miraculously, George survived, and when he regained consciousness after surgery, he discovered that his intense fear of germs had vanished along with part of his brain. He had effectively cured himself with a lobotomy, courtesy of a gunshot. Although he still required medications for depression, his compulsive behaviors were gone. A word of advice: don’t attempt this method yourself.
4. The Woman Who Can Induce Out-Of-Body Experiences
While many associate out-of-body experiences with eccentric callers on late-night talk shows, University of Ottawa researchers take the phenomenon quite seriously. In 2012, an unnamed psychology student, whom we’ll refer to as Reese, shared with Professors Claude Messier and Andra Smith that she frequently experienced these phenomena and, in fact, could consciously trigger them.
Reese reported that she first began having astral projections during her preschool years, when naptime was supposed to help her rest. As she grew older, these out-of-body experiences became a kind of psychic sleep aid, helping her to fall asleep more easily. Reese mentioned experiencing a variety of episodes, such as floating above her physical body or spinning around like a top. Although she was aware that she wasn’t physically moving—she could clearly see her actual body resting on the bed or floor—she still felt dizzy afterward.
Naturally, Messier and Smith were initially dubious, but when they placed Reese in an MRI, they observed some strange occurrences in her brain. Each time Reese induced an out-of-body experience, they noticed her visual cortex—the region responsible for forming mental images—was unexpectedly deactivated. In fact, the entire right hemisphere of her brain appeared inactive. However, there was significant activity on the left side. This is unusual, as both hemispheres typically work together when we imagine things. Interestingly, areas on the left side related to 'kinesthetic imagery'—the system that helps us comprehend our spatial relationship with the world—were active as normal.
Messier and Smith theorize that Reese is undergoing some form of hallucination, but one that doesn't seem to have a negative impact on her. It's akin to a dream where you're watching yourself from an outside perspective. The Canadian researchers suggest that these out-of-body experiences might be a typical part of childhood development, with some people continuing to experience them as adults. If such people exist, they likely believe their experiences are perfectly ordinary. Reese herself had no idea her waking episodes were extraordinary. 'I thought everybody could do that,' she remarked.
3. The Woman Who Scratched Through Her Skull
The woman known only as 'M' has faced a difficult life. After her marriage ended, she lost her children, fell into addiction, contracted HIV, and even suffered from a severe case of shingles. However, nothing compared to the relentless 'itch' that began two years after she overcame her heroin addiction and started managing her disease. Out of nowhere, the right side of her head started itching uncontrollably.
It all began after a severe shingles outbreak, and when M sought medical help, the doctors were perplexed. There were no signs of parasites, rashes, or red marks. No creams worked, and M couldn’t stop scratching. The itch was relentless, especially at night. She scratched so intensely that she would wake up to find her pillow covered in blood. She even tried wearing caps to bed, but nothing could stop her from scratching her scalp.
One night, M woke up to find green fluid dripping down her face. Alarmed, she rushed to her doctor, who, after a quick examination, immediately called for an ambulance. M was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was told that emergency surgery was required. It turned out that in her sleep, M had scratched right through her skull, exposing her brain. While it seems impossible for fingernails to penetrate bone, M’s skull had softened due to an infection called osteomyelitis, allowing her to dig a hole into her head.
Despite the surgery, the itching continued. In her desperate attempt to stop the sensation, M removed two skin grafts and had to be restrained. Doctors placed a foam helmet on her head, tied her hands to the bed at night, and confined her to a medical ward for two years. All this time, the cause of her condition remained a mystery. Some doctors speculated that since shingles had destroyed 96 percent of M’s nerve fibers on the right side of her scalp, the remaining 4 percent might be active itch fibers. But when they severed the main sensory nerve leading to the front of her head, nothing changed. The itch persisted.
If nerve fibers weren’t the cause, then what was? Science writer and surgeon Atul Gawande theorized that M’s brain was simply confused. With most of the nerve fibers gone from the front of M’s head, the brain wasn’t sure what was happening in that area, and for some unknown reason, it began to interpret the sensation as itching. Without any nerve signals to contradict this, the brain continued to signal the itch, much like the experience of amputees who feel pain in limbs that no longer exist.
Unfortunately, M has never been freed from her excruciating itch. She is now wheelchair-bound, with the left side of her body partially paralyzed. The itch remains, though she has managed to curb her nighttime urge to scratch her scalp. These days, she keeps her nails very short, just in case.
2. The Twins Who Might Share a Consciousness
Krista and Tatiana Hogan are conjoined twins, joined at the head, a condition known as craniopagus. This extremely rare condition occurs in just 1 in 2.5 million births, and most affected individuals don’t survive. However, Krista and Tatiana defy the odds. They are not only remarkably healthy but also possess a unique anatomical feature—a ‘thalamic bridge’—a connection between their thalami, the brain regions involved in sensory processing and consciousness. Neurosurgeon Douglas Cochrane coined this term, and it could revolutionize our understanding of the self.
The thalamus is a vital brain structure that processes sensory input and plays a crucial role in consciousness. Since Krista’s and Tatiana’s thalami are physically linked, researchers and their family suspect the twins perceive the world differently from others. For example, Dr. Cochrane believes the girls may be able to see through each other’s eyes. He arrived at this conclusion after covering Krista’s eyes, attaching electrodes to her head, and observing her brain’s response to light shown in Tatiana’s pupils.
The strobe light experiment is just one of many instances demonstrating the twins’ shared perception. At times, one twin might be watching television while the other looks elsewhere. Out of the blue, the twin not watching TV will burst out laughing at what’s happening on screen. Their ‘thalamic bridge’ also impacts their sense of taste. Krista is obsessed with ketchup, while Tatiana loathes it. On one occasion, Krista was eating ketchup, and Tatiana desperately tried to wipe the taste off her tongue, even though she hadn’t eaten any. Other strange occurrences include Krista feeling sensations meant for Tatiana, and both girls walking to the kitchen sink when one of them feels thirsty, without saying a word. Perhaps the most bewildering phenomenon is that the twins sometimes refer to themselves using the singular ‘I’ to describe both of them together.
By 2011, no conclusive tests had been conducted on the girls and their unusual condition. However, scientists who observed their behavior and brain scans were both stunned and fascinated. While no one can definitively state it yet, there’s strong evidence that Krista and Tatiana may be able to share private thoughts and sense what the other is experiencing. It’s a heartwarming thought—no matter how challenging their lives become, they will always have each other to rely on for support.
1. The Vegetative Patient Who Was Able to Communicate with Doctors
Scott Routley was considered a ‘vegetable’—at least, that’s what the doctors believed. After a severe car accident that injured both sides of his brain, he remained unresponsive for 12 years. He couldn’t speak or follow movements with his eyes, leading doctors to assume he was unaware of his surroundings and in a state of limbo. But they were wrong.
In 2012, Professor Adrian Owen and postdoctoral researcher Lorina Nacia from the University of Western Ontario decided to investigate patients in comas, like Scott Routley. They wanted to explore whether some patients, often deemed as ‘vegetables,’ might actually be conscious. Owen placed Routley in an fMRI scanner and asked him to imagine walking through his house. To everyone’s surprise, the brain scan revealed activity. Routley wasn’t just hearing Owen—he was responding.
The two researchers then developed a code to communicate. Owen asked a series of simple ‘yes or no’ questions. If Routley thought the answer was ‘yes,’ he imagined walking around his house, and if it was ‘no,’ he thought about playing tennis. These activities triggered responses in different areas of the brain. They started with basic questions like ‘Is the sky blue?’ but made medical history when Owen asked, ‘Are you in pain?’ and Routley responded with ‘No.’ This marked the first time a comatose patient with significant brain damage was able to communicate their condition.
In 2013, the pair conducted a follow-up test, using a simpler method. Owen instructed Routley to respond by simply thinking the words ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ During this session, the 38-year-old patient answered questions like ‘Are you in the hospital?’
The impact of Dr. Owen’s research is profound. While only about one in five vegetative patients may be able to communicate with doctors, this breakthrough provides a way for them to converse with their healthcare providers, express desires like what to eat, or even ask to watch TV. More crucially, it allows them to discuss their treatment preferences, including which medications they wish to take or whether they want to continue living. Although Scott Routley remains trapped in his body, he now has a way to reach out to the people around him.
