What Happens When a Neurosurgeon Removes Your Hippocampus

May 8, 2014

(Wired) – Until the past few decades, neuroscientists had one way to plumb the human brain: wait for disaster to strike people and, if the victims pulled through, see how their minds worked differently afterward. These poor men and women endured strokes, seizures, saber gashes, botched surgeries, and accidents so horrific that their survivals seemed little short of miracles. To say these people “survived,” though, doesn’t quite capture the truth. Their bodies survived, but their minds didn’t quite; their minds were warped into something new.