Two-year-old Oregon resident Katie Verdecchia learned to walk - there would be nothing special about it, if not for one "but": a few months ago, neurosurgeons had to perform a unique operation - they completely removed the child's right brain hemisphere
They were forced to take such an incredible step by a serious and rare illness, due to which the girl had epileptic seizures several dozen times a day. However, everything ended well - the surgeons turned out to be masters of their craft, and Katie is gradually returning to normal life. A month after the birth of her daughter, Katie Verdecchia's parents suspected that something was wrong: the child began to regularly experience spasms of the whole body. Only some time later, doctors were able to establish that Katie was born with a rare congenital anomaly - Aicardi's syndrome, that is, with an underdeveloped structure of the corpus callosum (to date, no more than 500 cases of Aicardi's syndrome have been registered in the world).
Katie Verdeccia was born with a lack of neural connections between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. The child was tormented by epileptic seizures, and doctors, in order to save her life, decided on a rare operation even for our time of rapid progress in medicine - surgeons removed the child's right hemisphere of the brain.
Epileptic seizures have passed, and doctors are confident that over time, almost all body functions will recover, since the brain has a high degree of plasticity - the areas of the left hemisphere will be able to take over the functions of areas removed during the operation.
The proof of the correctness of the Aesculapians is that the child learned to walk. Her condition is improving - doctors believe that the next stage will be mastering oral speech, since the speech centers are in the left hemisphere, then Katie should soon speak.
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“The doctors are very optimistic: everything should be decided within the next six months. It will become clear to what extent Katy's left brain is compensating for the lost right brain,”says neurosurgeon Gary Mathern.