In 1987, EG underwent a brain scan at George Washington University Hospital for an unrelated reason. Surprisingly, the scan revealed that she was miss

How Did a Woman with a Missing Temporal Lobe Become Bilingual?

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2022-07-01 20:00:15

In 1987, EG underwent a brain scan at George Washington University Hospital for an unrelated reason. Surprisingly, the scan revealed that she was missing her left temporal lobe. Instead, the area contained cerebrospinal fluid. Despite missing a part of her brain, EG has had a successful life and career. Not only does she have a graduate degree but also is bilingual and speaks fluent Russian. However, EG’s peculiar condition left several doctors dumbfounded. They failed to understand how EG did not develop seizures, learning disabilities or any language processing problems.

In 2006, EG thought she’d be a good fit for a study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) investigating the brain’s reaction to music. The team instead connected her with Dr. Evelina Fedorenko, a cognitive neuroscientist at MIT. At the time, Dr. Fedorenko and her team were investigating the brain regions involved in the development of language and learning. They decided to conduct functional MRI scans of EG’s brain and investigate whether the frontal language areas can develop independently of temporal regions.

According to the study published in Neuropsychologia, they first recorded her brain activity while she performed language processing tasks. Next, they compared these results to that of 90 controls with an intact left temporal lobe. Furthermore, EG also performed math tasks while undergoing brain scans.

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