The man lived without a brain until the age of 44 and did not notice it

Can a person live without a brain? Everyone will answer this question in the negative, but will be wrong. In France, they found a man who lives with virtually no brain, missing 90 percent. The anomaly was discovered by chance during a medical examination. Oddly enough, an unusual patient complained to doctors not about headaches at all. The absence of gray matter in the skull did not bother him at all.

Mathieu R. was an ordinary civil servant with simple duties and a modest salary. He was married, raised two children and loved to watch football. In 2007, at the age of 44, the man began to suffer from pain in his legs. Mathieu visited several doctors, but none of them could find the cause of his torment. In this regard, the doctors decided to fully examine the man, and the results shocked them.

Sore legs were immediately forgotten, as it suddenly turned out that the patient was literally "empty in the head." An MRI scan showed that Mathieu's skull was almost completely filled with fluid. Only a thin shell remained of the brain. According to all the laws of nature, such a person could not live, much less work in a state institution, raise children and drive a car. The phenomenal man had an IQ of 75, which is not much, but within the normal range.

The patient never complained of head problems. Most likely, if it were not for the pain in his legs, Mathieu would have lived his whole life without knowing what a unique person he is. Specialists undertook to study the Frenchman and found the cause of his illness. His brain was slowly deteriorating over the course of 30 years, and liquid took its place. This process is called hydrocephalus or dropsy of the brain.

Mathieu contracted hydrocephalus in early childhood. Until the age of 14, he walked with a special shunt in his skull through which fluid could be drained. Then the device was removed, as it was considered that the guy had outgrown and recovered. And in fact, the disease began to pass secretly. Fluid accumulated in the skull, and the brain gradually collapsed. But for 30 years this did not affect the well-being of the man. The doctors shrug their shoulders, because they don’t know how to help Mathieu and whether he needs help at all. For now, they just continue to rid him of the fluid accumulating in his head.