Neuro news

I had a video conference with another neurologist from Baltimore the other day.  I keep getting a lot of information on Oscar’s condition.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t really shed any light on what this condition means to him going forward.  The somewhat interesting news is that it does not seem to be the case at all that a person’s corpus callosum stops developing at birth.  The other interesting news is that his doctors have a theory about what could have caused his “issue.”  I don’t call it a problem.

From what I’ve been told by three neurologists now, there is a good chance that Oscar’s issue with his corpus callosum could have been caused by lack of attention in the orphanage.  There are apparently a number of studies that have shown that the corpus callosum (callosa?) of kids who have been neglected or abused significantly atrophy over time.  I’ve written about the state he was in when I adopted Oscar, but I’m not sure I would necessarily call what he went through “neglect” or “abuse.”  I doubt he was coddled, but what the doctors have tried to make me see is that lack of attention to the point that his poor little head flattened out like it did could be the culprit here.  Ultimately, I don’t know that what caused this situation is all that relevant.  It happened.  It’s over.  Move on.  Well, I would like to be that mature about it, but I’m not.  In addition, it is somewhat relevant, in that if this was the cause, it’s a somewhat helpful fact, as a lot of kids with this condition have it because of other organic issues (just imagine all of those brain maladies that you read about while pregnant or waiting for your adopted child – that’s what else there could be).  Oscar doesn’t have any of those, so they’re looking at this as a possible explanation.  Who knows.

What I do think is relevant that there is also a study that showed that the corpus callosa of a number of six year olds who played piano for 2.5+ hours a week grew significantly.  That, to me, is important.  I just need to figure out how to grow this tiny little part of his brain.  Playing the piano seems a bit like torture, but if it helps, Oscar is going to be getting a piano for his third birthday (starting him now seems premature).  Why wait until he’s six?

April 17, 2009 Posted by Oscar and Etta's mom | Oscar | 3 Comments