Half a Brain Is Enough: The Story of Nico

Nico is a remarkable eight-year-old boy who possesses a slight limp, an affinity for his laptop computer and a ""well-kept secret inside his skull."" At the age of three, doctors treated Nico's intractable epilepsy by excising the entire right hemisphere of his brain, a procedure conducted only on fairly young children (because of the greater plasticity of their brains) who experience severe seizures. In a brief academic analysis of the brain's compensatory capacity, Battro, a cognitive psychologist who has worked with Nico, compares the boy's rapid progression to developmental theories offered by Jean Piaget and other prominent psychologists. Supporting his own hypothesis that a half brain is a new brain, Battro notes that Nico's musical abilities, motor capabilities (when using a mouse and a keyboard) and attention span have all developed normally despite the fact that many researchers have determined that these functions are mediated by the right hemisphere. Nico's intact left hemisphere, Battro postulates, has acquired these skills and is a whole brain in itself. The only major deficit that Nico has yet to overcome concerns his poor drawing and handwriting skills, a handicap that Battro sought to conquer by giving him an ""information prosthesis""--a computer. Now Nico can draw and type on the computer better than anyone in his class, and he has recently discovered the virtues of e-mail and computer programming. Although this technical and theoretical examination will not appeal to the lay reader, Battro's computer-based approach to rehabilitation should interest both clinicians and biopsychologists. (Feb. 1)