• Question: if the brain is damaged can you recover??

    Asked by meggsie46 to Ben, James, Jen, Michael, Susanna on 20 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Susanna Martin

      Susanna Martin answered on 20 Mar 2013:

      That would depend on the type and extent of the damage, some people won’t recover from brain damage, but for others the brain might adapt to compensate allowing a partial recovery.

    • Photo: Jen Todd Jones

      Jen Todd Jones answered on 20 Mar 2013:

      Hi Meggsie

      It depends on where the brain is damaged, a lot of the time you can recover in the sense that you can survive and live but missing some function depending on the damage. When brain cells are damaged they typically die depending on what has damaged them, if it is loss of blood they normally can’t recover and same for if they have been shocked because you’ve hit your head too hard. Sometimes after something like a stroke, where a large part of the brain dies because of lack of blood, the blood vessels try to regrow to reactivate the brain area but this only works to a limited degree.

      In an area of the brain is damaged that’s usually it, that function can no longer happen (like damaging the part for vision and losing your sight) but sometimes functions ‘migrate’ around the brain so other bits of the brain take over the function instead and share the load, which I think is pretty cool!

      Jen

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