Doctors Baffled, Intrigued By Girl Who Doesn't Age 599
phyrebyrd writes "Brooke Greenberg is the size of an infant, with the mental capacity of a toddler. She turned 16 in January. Brooke hasn't aged in the conventional sense. Dr. Richard Walker of the University of South Florida College of Medicine, in Tampa, says Brooke's body is not developing as a coordinated unit, but as independent parts that are out of sync. She has never been diagnosed with any known genetic syndrome or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why. Brooke's hair and her nails are the only two things that grow, Howard said. 'She has pajamas and outfits that are 10 or 12 years old,' he said."
I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Insightful)
It just struck me reading that... it must really, REALLY suck being the first person to ever have a particular disease.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Funny)
Learn to smoke.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
what? and stunt her growth?
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Interesting)
It just struck me reading that... it must really, REALLY suck being the first person to ever have a particular disease.
What if we have it backwards?
What if she is the first person not to have the disease we all have and that she is aging but really really slow?
So in 100 years she will have the body of an 18 year old?!
I mean if you think about it, old age is a disease.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Insightful)
Meh, she'd still accumulate cellular damage and die of cancer eventually. Heart disease would also still be a possibility.
She'd probably die at 85 of pancreatic cancer or something, but look good doing it.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:4, Informative)
If the telomeres in fast-dividing cells are staying long, then she really will live for ever.
As discussed here back in 2005 [slashdot.org], there are actually seven significant hurdles to stopping aging. Telomeres are only one of them.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Informative)
Cancer is by definition a failure of the body to deal with genetic damage. The reason you're not already dead of cancer is because the body has mechanisms for dealing with such damage (which happens all the time). The reason people die of cancer is because at some point a specific set of genetic damage happens that bypasses those safety mechanisms. It's a question of when rather than if.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Informative)
Wouldn't be so sure of it. From the article:
In her first six years, Brooke went through a series of medical emergencies from which she recovered, often without explanation. She survived surgery for seven perforated stomach ulcers. She suffered a brain seizure followed by what was diagnosed as a stroke that weeks later left no apparent damage.
At 4, she fell into a lethargy that caused her to sleep for 14 days. Then, doctors diagnosed a brain tumor, and the Greenbergs bought a casket for her.
"We were preparing for our child to die," Howard Greenberg said. "We were saying goodbye. And, then, we got a call that there was some change; that Brooke had opened her eyes and she was fine. There was no tumor.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Funny)
So she's Wolverine?
Not quite wolverine (Score:5, Interesting)
But maybe with her "normal" growth is considered damage and thus "fixed".
Just like the brain tumour that appeared and vanished, any parts that try to go "next stage" get repaired.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes. What family and doctors have believed to be just baby talk is in fact a Canadian accent with a liberal sprinkling of 'bub's.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Insightful)
Meh, she'd still accumulate cellular damage and die of cancer eventually. Heart disease would also still be a possibility.
She'd probably die at 85 of pancreatic cancer or something, but look good doing it.
I'd take that deal.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:4, Interesting)
Meh, she'd still accumulate cellular damage and die of cancer eventually. Heart disease would also still be a possibility.
She'd probably die at 85 of pancreatic cancer or something, but look good doing it.
I think if you look carefully at the photos you can see signs of aging. She is aging, just not developing. The two are very different. Look, in particular, at the lines descending from her nose to around her mouth. As an infant, these lines are not apparent; as we get older they become more pronounced. For Brooke, these lines seem to be developing at about the same rate as her siblings, becoming apparent in the last two photos especially, suggesting that she is aging like them, but has not developed at all. This, in turn, would indicate a hormonal issue, as posited by another reply in this thread.
My speculation is that when she turns 30, Brooke will look like a 30 year old in the shape of a baby, except her skin will be somewhat less damaged since she spends most of her time inside.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Insightful)
Old age is a feature, not a bug. With less turn-over it would be difficult to life as a whole to adapt to changing environment. It has drawbacks as knowledge lost by the dead individual. Advanced life forms overcome that with culture.
Earlier simpler life forms probably lacked the aging feature, and were superseded by others who had it.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Interesting)
But I think we *have* created an environment that does, by building such intricate communities and engaging so heavily in health care and stuff. There are very, very, very few animals that have longer average lifespans than humans. (Sharks, tortoises, and possibly some parrots, are the only ones that come to mind, and I *believe* those are mostly because those are animals that have little predation in their natural environments, so they have less need to reproduce as quickly as possible.)
One thing about evolution that isn't well-understood by the world at large, is that it has to work with what it currently has. Humans aren't likely to develop the ability to see electric fields any time soon, because there's no existing framework. We have trillions of generations of ancestors focussed on reproducing quickly because they lived in environments where that was favored. It's difficult to find a path that diverges from such a strong existing trend: there's very little to work with.
Plus, there are a number of different aging mechanisms. It's a weakest-link-of-the-chain sort of situation. The mechanisms tend to all equilibrate at one general area, as a result of neutral genetic drift (if one aging mechanism tends to kill people at 90 and another at 140, the one at 140 has nothing pushing it to stay there so it can drift down to 90 without affecting anything; over time it will probably tend to do this. Repeat with a half-dozen mechanisms that seem to be indicated in aging.)
Which is all a very long way of saying that I'm guessing we're in an ecological niche that does select for longer lifespans, and we're seeing the results of it, but our genes don't give evolution a lot of material to work with so we might not get much more than we currently have.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:4, Interesting)
I personally think it's low humidity, lower oxygen pressure (reducing oxidative damage) and in part selection: people who are sickly don't stay in high-altitude areas because they generally have less specialist medical care. I grew up in one of those little mountain towns in Colorado and older people said "it's hard to breathe: I'm moving to Florida" where they died.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Old age is a feature, not a bug. With less turn-over it would be difficult to life as a whole to adapt to changing environment.
Not necessarily. Older organisms and younger organisms must still compete for the same resources and prove their fitness to survive.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll take age and treachery against youth and strength any day.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Old age is a feature, not a bug. With less turn-over it would be difficult to life as a whole to adapt to changing environment. It has drawbacks as knowledge lost by the dead individual. Advanced life forms overcome that with culture.
Earlier simpler life forms probably lacked the aging feature, and were superseded by others who had it.
The question of what causes age has been answered satisfactorily for some time. The cause is the fact that selective pressure decreases with age on account of mishaps associated with being alive. For example, after 10 years, a fly not subject to old age will have a far greater chance of being eaten by a spider than a 10-day old fly, so whatever genes allowed the former to live that long are most likely already lost.
By contrast, your off-the-cuff theory is hard to support. What of sharks, or other organisms
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Funny)
What if we have it backwards?
What if she is the first person not to have the disease we all have and that she is aging but really really slow?
It's like I've been saying- you kids are going _way_ too fast!
Now, get off my lawn!
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:4, Interesting)
It just struck me reading that... it must really, REALLY suck being the first person to ever have a particular disease.
What if we have it backwards?
What if she is the first person not to have the disease we all have and that she is aging but really really slow?
So in 100 years she will have the body of an 18 year old?!
If she currently has the intellect of a four year old, then I am not too optimistic about her ever living a normal life.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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A disease, by definition, is something abnormal. Since all living things age and die, she IS abnormal. Saying that all living things are diseased and she's the only normal one would just be silly.
Of course, the other problem is that she probably IS aging. There's not enough info in the article, and I haven't been able to find any details online, but the story does suggest that parts of her body are aging and developing at different paces. Also, they say that there's nothing unusual about her chromosomes
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:4, Informative)
What if she is the first person not to have the disease we all have and that she is aging but really really slow?
That is an interesting thought. There's actually some molecular evidence that aging, on a cellular level, is a result of a specific mechanism, not just a general and inevitable accumulation of damage.
This paper [nih.gov] is... well one I haven't actually read. But I did see a seminar by the author. He suggested that accumulation of a specific protein fragment was causing aging. It was found in one of those premature aging diseases (Hutchinson-Gilford progeria specifically) with increased abundance, but they do find it accumulates as people get older, changing some cell mechanisms. The theory was that the full length protein, which has important normal functions, was cut in a specific way with low frequency, but over time the fragments build up and interfere with different processes, the effects of which seem to mimic aging.
Of course, it's not definitive that this is how you age, and there are several other mechanisms which might be causing aging in specific ways, but the implications of the theories are interesting: it might be possible to block those pathways to stop aging.
Unfortunately for this specific girl, I don't see anything to indicate she's not aging, I think it's probably she's just not actually growing. Growing and aging do appear independant, as progeria [wikipedia.org] patients appear to age more rapidly but don't grow rapidly. It is possible that whatever is keeping her from growing will also prevent her from aging, but I don't see any reason to expect that.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't remember their family name but it was named after her older brother, and she had it too. AFAIK, she and her brother are the only 2 documented cases of the disorder. They both had severe scoliosis, a lot of pain, some immune system disorders, and their abdomens were very short when compaired to the rest of their bodies (due to the scoliosis of the spine I assume). Having a disease named after their family was definitely not any sort of consolation either. She graduated first in her class, so it probably won't interfere with the rest of her life. She'll probably just have to explain about it to everyone she meets, and have some medical complications as she gets older and decides whether or not to have kids.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:4, Funny)
Except that you might get it named after
Sadly, they named my condition Gigantus Penis Maximus Syndrome and left my name right out of it.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Funny)
Gigantic PMS?
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Really? Lou Gehrig was a doctor? wow, the things you learn on /.
Re:I don't have anything really smart to say (Score:5, Informative)
Lou Gehrig and the eponymous legionnaires are the rare exception.
Perhaps you've heard of Alois Alzheimer, Hans Asperger, Thomas Hodgkin, James Parkinson, or Georges Tourette. Then again, probably not. But you've most likely heard of Alzheimer's Disease, Asperger Syndrome, Hodgkin Disease (or at least non-Hodgkin Lymphoma), Parkinson's Disease, and Tourette Syndrome.
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Stop arguing with yourself AC
The Fountain of Youth. (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, age is a really interesting field to me, especially cognitive age. I really like how there are stages in raising a child that, if followed honestly, usually lead to children becoming very capable, healthy adults. What's even more interesting is what happens to a child should the development of any of those stages be tampered with.
Re:The Fountain of Youth. (Score:5, Informative)
citation needed
Sure, I'll bite. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19492313?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum [nih.gov]
Surgeon General's warning (Score:5, Funny)
She looks retarded ... (Score:3, Interesting)
And it appears that, at 16, she still has the brains and skill set of an infant ... this is going to sound cruel, but without any more details, it sounds like a good argument for post-birth abortion. I mean, what's the point? At least "The Strange Case of Benjamin Button" had SOME growth of character.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I was thinking the same thing but this is a bit different.
I was actually expecting to hear someone say something like "Call me when she's 18..." While some might say that's horrible or gross or whatever, I have to say that it is some kind of irony considering the generally arbitrary rules and laws we have regarding age and eligibility.
Re:She looks retarded ... (Score:5, Informative)
Regardless of age, there are laws against sex with people with diminished mental capacity, who cannot give consent.
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Not even if you paste a picture of an adult's face over hers?
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Note to mods: troll does not equal "i disagree". Frankly I disagree with Tom. I think his point of view is very childish and has a large lack of empathy, or even the rudiments of human compassion. However, his point of view is not trollish.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The family's situation is totally screwed up. If nothing changes, at least one of the kids is going to be stuck baby-sitting for the rest of their lives, putting their own life on hold, after the parents kick the bucket. This isn't fair to them. Worse - what if the genetic defect is 50/50, and the kids are carriers?
This is not a blessing - it's a horror show. Imagine dying of old age and never having become self-aware ... you can imagine it because your ARE self-aware. Emily never will be. That's the
Re:She looks retarded ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I got the sense that she's more like the family pet than a toy ... but yes, it's sad.
And for all those who downmodded this sort of discussion, it shows more concern with form over function, a lack of understanding about what really makes us human. and/or a knee-jerk reaction to anything that doesn't conform to your initial perception of "don't harm the cute baby." It's not a "cute baby" - it's a grotesque parody of a human, with no potential, no real personality (the brain has not changed since infanthood - she can't talk, and reacts the same as an infant to outside stimuli).
About the only positive thing to say at this point is that baby diapers are cheaper than Depends.
Her bones are aging at an almost normal rate, so there's no question of her living to be centuries old, and "just developing slower". Maybe they can transplant the genes into "Chicken Little".
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She's still a person, even if she doesn't have a life like you and me. Don't you think your logical approach and cynism are useless here? Her parents love her. Should we kill her anyway?
Think about killing old people with Alzheimer. Would that be the 'right' thing to do?
You took a big logical jump about my sig. There is no saying about killing the ones who don't have a life.
I don't remember bashing someone here in /. but you really sound like a dumbass. Sorry.
Wow...great stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
Failure to age or failure to grow? (Score:5, Informative)
Reaching adulthood and then preserving the body of a 20-year-old forever is one thing. This is quite something else.
It is not so much failure to age, as failure to grow/mature. It remains to be seen whether her abnormality will grant longer life span in practice.
Mod parent up (Score:3, Informative)
Aging is the result of accumulated bio-chemical damage and degeneration. While failure to grow does have some beneficial effect from on biological aging--e.g. both calorie restriction and growth-hormone deficiency appear to enhance lifespan, at least in mice--it is quite likely that this girl's condition was simply misreported.
Similar story (Score:4, Interesting)
Years ago I read about this girl who was 19 and had never entered puberty (she had developed normally otherwise). Turns out there was a tumor blocking her pituitary gland. I'm sure they've done hundreds of tests so it can't be something like that but I was just reminded of that story.
High school girls (Score:3, Funny)
the answer is in the abc article (Score:5, Interesting)
not that i know a damn thing about endocrinology, but i would speculate that this failed therapy suggest that, as we all have receptors for various hormones, her body has no such receptors for HGH. if someone is born genetically male, but has no male secondary characteristics, then either:
1. his body produces no testosterone,
2. his body produces testosterone, but his body doesn't react to it
i would say that this girl, uh, young woman, has an incredibly rare, unique mutation: insensitivity to human growth hormone. it would explain all of her symptoms
Re:the answer is in the abc article (Score:5, Funny)
i would say that this girl, uh, young woman, has an incredibly rare, unique mutation: insensitivity to human growth hormone. it would explain all of her symptoms
Was it Wilson's story about his tennis elbow that jarred you to that conclusion?
it's NOT lupus (Score:4, Funny)
(scowl... limp... vicodin chomp)
Re:the answer is in the abc article (Score:4, Interesting)
exactly (Score:3, Interesting)
the mutation would be not in the HGH pathway, but in some pathway ABOVE the HGH pathway that governs the HGH pathway and a bunch of other growth pathways, like brain development. some deeper aspect of growth initiation, some sort of growth "superswitch" this girl has given us unique insight into
does hgh play a role in brain development? (Score:3, Interesting)
i mean superficially, the answer is definitely no. but perhaps at some other level of early development it does
or, alternately, maybe her mutation is in some previously unknown, deeper biological pathway. a deep growth superswitch pathway that controls HGH reception/release AND whatever governs brain development
Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
She has pajamas and outfits that are 10 or 12 years old,' he said.
That's nothing, I work in an office with some programmers who haven't changed their outfits in over twenty years.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Wide lapels and pocket protectors are timeless and durable classics.
HGH Receptors (Score:5, Interesting)
So clearly an HGH deficiency isn't the (only) issue, it's that her HGH receptors don't respond to the hormone. But, to the best of my knowledge, that wouldn't account for a lack of mental development. This sounds like a combination of many factors coming together.
I'll have to take a look to see if there's anything written from a medical perspective (e.g., a journal paper) on this case. It could be interesting to hear what the doctors have to say, as opposed to what ABC News reports the poor mother has to say (projecting her wishes onto her daughter: thinking she's a rebellious teenager when really she's just an infant).
Mental development... (Score:5, Interesting)
Her lack of mental development could be directly related to her lack of physical development, in that her brain is not physically developing to be able to learn and process information like everyone else's does. I'm by no means a doctor but I thought I'd throw that out there as a reasonable hypothesis.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Another case (Score:5, Interesting)
Relativity (Score:5, Funny)
I've seen this before, sorta... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have an aunt who was in her third trimester when she was in a car accident, and Dolly was born soon after with no apparent damage... except she never grew up. Dolly passed away a few years ago, at the age of 33, and weighed about 80 pounds - she did grow "up", but much slower than normal - she was 20 before she weighed 40 pounds, and never spoke a single intelligible word. She never matured mentally beyond around 6 months, and was always in a crib at all the family gatherings. Thankfully, I never had to change her diaper.
There are some differences, as Dolly did seem to physically mature, just very slowly - but the doctors didn't seem to think it was that phenomenal, just brain damage from the accident. She did have the same odd development that Megan's eyes have - the wandering eye, so to speak. (As opposed to my wandering eye, which is entirely a different sort of affliction.) :)
babies are very cute (Score:5, Funny)
perhaps a large conglomerate could claim intellectual property on this mutation, and mass produce cute little baby pets that never grow up and become surly teenagers. perhaps you could even clone yourself, and have a little pet baby you to waddle around in diapers and make cute cooing noises. when the novelty wears off and they become a hassle, just leave them by the side of the road, like people always do with golden retriever puppies at the end of the summer and such*
*this post brought to you in an attempt to offend every shred of ethics you have
OK, you 'for the children' obsessives... (Score:5, Interesting)
In a couple of years, when she turns 18, would nudes of her be child porn? Eh?
(listens for the sounds of heads exploding)
There Can Be Only One (Score:3, Funny)
Damn, she's going to be at a tremendous disadvantage come the Gathering.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Gunter Grass called... (Score:3, Informative)
...he's looking for a little recognition. Seriously, has no one ever read, watched, or heard of Der Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum)?
It's about a little boy who decides not to grow up and his body doesn't age. IT WON THE FREAKING NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE!!!
Geez, you people.
Peter Pan (Score:3, Funny)
Re:She seems to grow (Score:5, Insightful)
The article says that her brain has hardly changed at all - it's still an infant's brain. If you read the article, you'll see that the parents and those around her who claim to see changes or improvements in her ability to communicate are projecting their wishes, same as people do with their pets - except that pets CAN grow and learn. Brooke can't.
Imagine if your brain suddenly never changes. You can never learn a new thing, remember anything from even 5 minutes ago, etc. Before the movie "50 First Dates", there was a sci-fi short story that posited this, with horrifying consequences. It would be the worse than having Alzheimers.
Re:She seems to grow (Score:5, Insightful)
"Before the movie "50 First Dates", there was a sci-fi short story that posited this, with horrifying consequences"
It must suck that your example of this is a crappy rom-com with Adam Sandler rather than a brilliant film like Memento [imdb.com].
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I would say that yes, in the early stages they quite often are aware of it. My grandfather had Alzheimer's before he died, and was constantly upset by all of the things he couldn't remember, even from a few minutes ago. Eventually he gave up trying, and started just living further and further in the past, since it was all he could remember. My grandmother on the other side is now in the early stages of it as well, and realizes
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Well, from our point of view, it must suck to be that person. But are people with, say, Alzheimer's aware of what they are missing out on?"
I take it you have no experience with Alzheimer's.
Alzheimer's is not instant. It happens over a long period with slow degradation of your memory. During this period, it is very hard on the person it happens to. They realise that something is not right, and they start to struggle with social situations.
They slowly start loosing grip on their own personality and they see
No, she is aging too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:She seems to grow (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Brooke is a deviation (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude. Lay off the weed.
Re:Brooke is a deviation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Brooke is a deviation (Score:5, Funny)
Mr. Taucross, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Re:Brooke is a deviation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Be Careful what you wish for! (Score:5, Informative)
I wonder what the cause of diminished mental capacity might be?
While I am not aware of the particulars of this case, as a doctor I can state that myelinization of nerve cells inside the brain is what is believed to contribute to increased cognitive ability. Babies are born with roughly the number of neurons (nerve cell) they will have for the rest of their lives, however these neurons are not fully coated in myelin. Myelin increases the efficiency and conductivity of a neuron, and is synthesized by cells surrounding the neuron. However this production takes time - a few years in the case of neurons outside the brain - which explains why babies are also clumsy. Myelinization of the brain itself takes roughly 20 years.
I suspect that this patient isn't producing myelin, among other things, and therefore will never reach her cognitive potential.
Re:Be Careful what you wish for! (Score:4, Informative)
Mental maturity also has implications in the growth and development of the brain, neural pathways being formed, other changes. If those things never happen, BAM, infant forever.
Very interesting. I'd wager its a bunch of hormone triggers never triggering, which is usually the root cause of age/size related stuff. I knew a kid when I was younger who lacked certain hormones in the correct proportions, so while he was my age mentally, and in actual years, he was about 5 years behind me in physical development, and had to take hormone shots.
Re:Be Careful what you wish for! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, now, there are two aspects to this: brain growth, and learning.
A human's brain is pretty close to adult size and mass by the age of 5. You can say that this is the scaffold on which the remaining 5% of mass growth is built on. But more importantly, the cells (both in that initial 95% and subsequent 5%) are growing connections to each other, and these connections seem to be based on learning. White matter also is slowly replaced to a small degree with gray matter; white matter is "wiring" between active cells of gray matter "processors".
This may explain, to some extent, why the (physiologically very) young lady in TFA is functioning intellectually like a toddler: her uneven growth affects the basic brain development you'd expect in early childhood (the 95% mass mentioned earlier), so the brain lacks structural complexity to grow "learning connections". I suppose restricted brain growth is fortunate, in a sense; if her cranium hasn't grown, age-appropriate brain growth would be bad.
IANADoctor. This is just how the described phenomena match up in my mind with the little childhood development (psychology/anatomy) studies and basic physiology I've learned here and there. YMMV.
Re:I bet it's lupus.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I bet it's lupus.. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why isn't there an "insensitive" mod point?
Re:Check out TFA (Score:4, Funny)
Why isn't there an "insensitive" mod point?
Would that be +1 or -1 ?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"fit to the last detail"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primordial_dwarf [wikipedia.org] has descriptions of various forms of PD, none of which seem to match very well.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The 'child' is a primordial dwarf. Her symptoms fit to the last detail.
This story has done time on Digg and Fark already, probably several other sites as well, and it seems everywhere large numbers of non-doctors can use Google to compare her symptoms to a RARE but known medical condition. The poor kid's doctors either don't know how to research or are otherwise incompetent.
Or maybe, just a wild thought here, maybe they have a slightly better insight into her symptoms, having actually examined her and seen her test results, and they have already ruled that out for reasons which your cursory diagnosis, based on reading an ABCnews article and several minutes of medical training, missed.