Academician, head of the neurosurgical department of the Republican Scientific and Practical Center for Neurology and Neurosurgery, neurosurgeon Arnold Fedorovich Smeyanovich has performed brain surgeries in almost 9000 patients for 47 years of practice.
People registered as potential invalids become able to work. For more than 5 years he has not had an operational lethality. 250 complex interventions every year, which Dr. Smeyanovich performs personally. A person sensitive to the pain of others, ready to save others around the clock.
Arnold Fedorovich, almost every day you look into the brain and say that for a scientist it is 99.9% a secret
- Yes, I see a substance in front of me, the cells of which are filled with such a volume of knowledge that I would like, like Newton, to take off my hat to every researcher of him. It is not clear how it "works". For any signal from a nerve, ear or eye, a "picture" is created in it. But how, in the end, does a person understand that this is a monkey, this is a lamp, and this is himself? It is clear that the brain is more powerful than any supercomputer.
Processor clock speeds are measured in gigahertz or terahertz; and humans have only kilohertz. The signal goes from neuron to neuron not at the speed of light, but at 1,400 meters per second. However, the brain spins much faster.
The most amazing thing is that consciousness has no place in the body, and the connection between the brain and thought is generally a deep mystery. It is probably owned by the Creator.
Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Natalya Bekhtereva admitted that when she and her staff tried to comprehend the deep structures of the brain (for the first time in the USSR, a scientist used the method of long-term implantation of electrodes), they immediately fell ill. We felt so bad that there was no strength for any research. But it was worth stopping the experiments - vigor and health immediately returned. Surgeon Voino-Yasenetsky, who is also Archbishop Luke, winner of two USSR State Prizes, compared the brain to a telephone exchange: the role is reduced to issuing a message. He adds nothing to what he receives.
Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine John Ackles (discovered the ionic mechanisms of excitation and inhibition in peripheral and central nerve cells) believed that the brain "does not produce" thoughts, but only perceives them from the outside. Natalya Bekhtereva was not afraid of devastating, derogatory criticism from fellow materialists and said that the human brain is capable of creating only the simplest thoughts.
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Where theories, hypotheses, discoveries are born - is still unknown to physiologists. I also think that the brain is a creature in a being, a secret sealed with seven seals.
A special laboratory was created to study Lenin's brain, which soon expanded into an institute. Have you been to the department of Sergei Mardashov, where the brain of the leader of the world proletariat was kept?
- No, I haven't. But, judging by the description of the operation made to Ilyich by the People's Commissar of Health Nikolai Semashko after the shots of Fanny Kaplan, and the autopsy act (a secret archival document, access to which was received by Monika Spivak, who published the book "Posthumous Diagnosis of Genius"), Lenin had problems. Arteriosclerosis: they knocked on the vessels with tweezers, as if on a bone - they were so saturated with lime.
The entire left hemisphere in cysts, softened areas of the brain, clogged blood vessels almost did not deliver blood - the disease seriously affected the organ that was doing the most intense work. The contents of the cranium turned out to be small - 1,340 g (for comparison: Byron's brain weighed 1,800 g, Turgenev's - 2,012 g, and the largest belonged to … an idiot). But weighty substance and breadth of mind, genius are loosely coupled.
Anatole France had the smallest brain in volume; Louis Pasteur, the founder of microbiology and immunology, had one hemisphere in general. And they lived for a long time and worked as God forbid everyone.
The patient is prepared for the operation by assistants: intubate, open the cranium. You know everything about the patient, for you this is an unshakable rule. But, let's suppose for a second that there is an unconscious man on the table, he was brought from the street with a severe head injury. When you see his brain, you can say: is it smart or stupid?
- This is out of the question. Some have a bigger brain, some have less. The appearance of the brain does not affect intelligence. Once, if I’m not mistaken, 40 years ago, I helped my Teacher, Professor Efrem Zlotnik, to operate on a student of the conservatory. She had a large tumor in her hemisphere.
When it was removed, it turned out that the hemisphere was practically gone, the tumor destroyed. The girl recovered, graduated with honors from the conservatory, left for the United States, a millionaire fell in love with her, whom she married. She still plays wonderfully today, I know about it, because I receive greetings and congratulations from her.
We also remove tumors on the frontal lobe of the brain, which is largely responsible for intelligence. When the neoplasm is tightly "welded" with the gray matter, it is necessary to remove part of the healthy one.
The next day you are talking with a patient and do not notice that it was difficult for him to collect his thoughts. He jokes, he remembers everything from his life.
Probably, the brain is given to us with a large margin so that we can use it until the end of our days?
- The fact of the matter is that for many it "rusts" much more often than wears out. Forty percent just resting. People live like the fabulous Emelya on the stove, they expect that everything will appear on its own, they do not train memory, do not develop intelligence. And then they are surprised that they cannot remember the elementary.
The brain needs training, knowledge, reading, contemplation of beauty, restoration of a higher understanding of the meaning of life in its consciousness.
Before starting brain research in the laboratory, Academician Natalya Bekhtereva took the blessing of Metropolitan John of St. Petersburg and Ladoga (Snychev). She did not hide that she was calling for God's help. Do you believe in him?
- When I see how beautifully the heart and brain are arranged, which have no analogues in nature, I have no doubt that it was not without the Divine hand. The great Russian surgeon Nikolai Pirogov wrote that “the brain of an individual person serves as the organ of thought of world thought. It is necessary to recognize the existence, besides the cerebral thought, and another, higher, world.
This is easy to understand, unless you try to explain everything. For me personally, God is an ideal that a person should embody in his daily life.
Maybe it is incorrect to ask a neurosurgeon questions about neurophysiology - this is the science of blind spots. And yet: I want to know why the bundle of nerve fibers that transmit signals from the right to the left hemisphere is wider in women than in men?
- Unfortunately, it is still completely unclear what the "beam" feature affects. In "Proverbs of the Russian People" by V. Dahl, every line about women breathes malice: "Hair is long, but mind is short," "Baba is delirious, but the devil believes her." However, 15% more blood flows through various parts of the female brain per unit of time. Perhaps this explains the lower strength of the male brain as a biological organism, and hence the higher frequency of strokes.
Sex differences do not affect the gray matter. Nevertheless, psychologists have proven that women are easier to cope with tasks where intuition is needed.
Women's shrewdness sometimes means more than men's confidence. The coordination of subtle movements in the weaker sex is more perfect, as well as the available range of smells, high-frequency sounds, women better differentiate taste sensations.
I think a woman’s brain doesn’t need a lawyer’s defense. Nature has made it so that all types of human activity are equally accessible to both sexes, they just reach the heights of success not always in the same ways.
What do you think, where is the place of the soul - in the brain, spinal cord, in the heart?
- It seems to me that this substance does not need a place. If she is, then she is the mistress throughout the body.
What do you think about when you operate? After all, sometimes the intervention lasts 7 hours …
- Only about how to help the patient. Do not consider this as lofty words, but as if someone cuts off any thoughts. They are absent, as well as the swallowing reflex. I do not want to drink or eat, or get up and stretch my shoulders. I am sitting on a chair, looking through a microscope at someone else's brain (there is a small navigation system in a hoop on my head), it is under a scalpel in my hand. If she falters, the patient may be traumatized for life.
It is not easy to spend half a day at a microscope. But there is also a result: people registered as potential invalids become able-bodied, there is no operational lethality for more than 5 years.
Life filters the environment around you. Who is more today - friends or enemies?
- It seems to me that both are equally divided. The second are envious. People tend to look with angry eyes at those who want speed and novelty. The new is always surrounded by mistrust, standard thinking slips proof of impossibility. And talent neglects the error detector …
The protesting nature of ill-wishers must be seen as a signal. A sensitive soul must catch it in order to react correctly. Intrigues, slander, envy only set off the greatness of the present case. I advise everyone not to be distracted by squabbles and empty conversations, but to live by what brings joy. For me personally, this is work.
What do you feel when you cannot save a patient?
- Always the thought is the same: even though you are an academician, you have achieved nothing. You sew up the wound with a bitter feeling: the tumor could not be removed, it has already managed to destroy everything. You avert your eyes to the side on the detour. You can't lie, you are silent. You understand that death is impending. And it's impossible to get used to it.
Tell the patient that he has a malignant tumor?
- Rarely. And only to a courageous, calm person, so that he has time to finish some important things. And then he declares that he does not want to be operated on, they say, it will resolve itself. “You have a tumor that is growing rapidly, after a while you will be paralyzed,” I say firmly. And the person agrees to remove it. But what kind of tumor - I do not comment.
The brain has its own self-preservation and protection unit, like a fuse. The brain protects itself so that the flurry of negative emotions does not capture entirely.
Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander Suvorov remembered all their soldiers - up to 30 thousand people. Socrates knew by sight each of the 20 thousand inhabitants of Athens. And Charlie Chaplin could not even give the name of the secretary with whom he worked for 7 years. How to strengthen our memory, what to eat?
“When you notice a problem, the best way to remember is to write down the reminders on paper and attach them at eye level. Coming up with puzzles, talking to yourself, without being ashamed of it. Say quietly: "I leave the car at the end of the parking lot under a tall poplar." Give yourself orders in your mind: "You need to call such and such."
If you want to immediately remember the name of a person, then make an association with some way. For example: Masha - waves her hands, Katerina - rides a boat, Vasya - hangs on the horizontal bar.
Read more. There are also atherosclerotic recipes that have long been used by the people: rowan bark, clover flowers, beet juice mixed with carrot juice, horseradish, wild garlic, onions. The food should contain: bread with bran (vitamins of group B - "the first violin" in the process of memorization), cheese, peas, buckwheat porridge, nuts, seafood, vegetables, fruits, honey. It has been noticed that the heart also likes everything that is good for the brain.
What is your attitude to alcohol?
- A glass of good cognac will not harm the body. Once I read from the philosopher Vasily Rozanov: “Damn vodka. A hundred bastards came and shit in my brain. Figuratively. If I had my way, I would turn these words into a poster and hang them in places where young people hang out.
The happiest moments in your life?
- When I see and hear people happy. Between them there is always the closest and rare sympathy, it seems, they live in perfect harmony and mind alone. Among these, even the callous thaw out …
