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Doctors Baffled, Intrigued By Girl Who Doesn't Age
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."
It just struck me reading that... it must really, REALLY suck being the first person to ever have a particular disease.
She must've drank from it by mistake. This is why Moms should be attentive of their children!
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.
GOVERNMENT WARNING: (1) According to the Surgeon general, women should not drink from the fountain of youth during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects.
"The Y chromosome is genetic. The odds are very good that if you are male then your father was too." -Internet Commenter
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.
Wow...that is absolutely amazing...and she is so fortunate to have a family that sees the situation so positively...and who supports related research by the scientific community to see if there is a potential broader benefit here. Frankly, it must be tough for them at times, but I am sure that my wife would *love* it if our little girl never grew up. Thank goodness her sisters are supportive, because they will most likely need to take care of her in the future after her parents advance in age. Great stuff.
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.
Her body is not developing as a co-ordinated unit because her environment (humanity) isn't either. These kind of deviations within nature will continue to become more apparent as humans evolve. As long as we continue to grow egoistically, separated from one another, we will be as cancer cells rather than living tissue - working for the benefit of ourselves rather than each other. We are all complicit in her abnormality.
"In the absence of the ability to establish the attribute of truth they tried to establish the noble attributes."
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.
It's never lupus
No sig for the moment.
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.
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.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
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.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Except for the one time where it was lupus.
High school girls stay the same age as well. Giggity giggity.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Some of her body part , like bone structure, are 10 years old. Thus it sounds doubtful she will reach the multi-centenarian age you cited. They tried to communicate with her , tried to teach her speaking but it failed. Anyway there is a rearrangement of the pharynx/larynx at the venerable age of 1/2 years old which is needed to be able to physically speak. Without it you can't. Maybe a doctor/biologist can chime in.
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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.
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).
As a possible fountain of youth.
Wow, this article is not what I expected in the slightest. Here I was thinking it was some hot 21-year-old girl who was gonna look 21 the rest of her life, and I was gonna show up here and say "Some guy is gonna be a super lucky husband!" But, uh...er... anyway, moving right along.
There is this girl/woman in Brazil, Maria Aldenete, who has similar syntoms. I couldn't find any info in English on her... She's 30 years old or so.
But are people with, say, Alzheimer's aware of what they are missing out on?
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 exactly what's happening. Oddly enough, she's sufficiently upbeat about it that she actually jokes that it won't make much difference, she's always been a stereotypical blonde anyways, and could never remember things properly before it started - the only difference is that now she's got an excuse.
Has anyone considered that she might just be moving very close to the speed of light?
the parents and those around her who claim to see changes or improvements in her ability to communicate are projecting their wishes,
How are you in a better position to comment on that than the people around her? And what do the people who are saying her brain has hardly changed know? They diagnosed her with brain tumor and a few days later she was declared tumor-free? How much do we know about the brain to comment? I would rather accept what her family and friends are saying based on direct observation rather than statements based on half-knowledge made by ignorant doctors.
Life is about being a Phoenix!
"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.
Looking through the slideshow, she does appear to be ageing in some ways even if she hasn't changed much physically. If she survived into old age I imagine she still would have wrinkly skin and white hair etc.
From the information available it looks like rather than not ageing, she hasn't grown up.
I don't think any show will live a thousand years. Except for maybe Law and Order or The Simpsons.
Yeah. In several hundred years she'll hit puberty. Then within a few weeks she'll develop blue-green lesions that will cover her body. She'll turn grup, meaning she'll become violent and full of rage, and then die. I saw it on TV.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
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.) :)
Truck driver, plumber, Linux systems engineer.
Why isn't there an "insensitive" mod point?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
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.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
"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 what this is doing to their family and friends, making them even more distressed.
Even far into the condition, they sometimes have moments of clarity which mostly just serve to remind them of what they have lost.
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In a couple of years, when she turns 18, would nudes of her be child porn? Eh?
(listens for the sounds of heads exploding)
-Styopa
> So she's Wolverine?
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.
Damn, she's going to be at a tremendous disadvantage come the Gathering.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
As seen in Fig. 6, the subject's PBMC telomere length at 13 years of age was significantly shorter than that of an age-matched female control as well as male and female controls of younger ages. While variability in average telomere length exists between individuals, the low subject values are probably not due to errors in measurement since the coefficients of variation were sufficiently low to assume adequate precision. Although the subject's telomeres were nearly half the length of a healthy, age-matched female control, this comparison in and of itself does not prove that her cellular age is advanced beyond that of the normal girl. However, an important observation relevant to this difference is that there occurs a precipitous loss of telomere length during early life after which a plateau period is reached (Frenck et al., 1998). As a result, telomere length in newborns is longer on average than that in adolescents so that comparison of the subject's telomeres with newborn controls would be expected to provide more reliable estimate of her cellular age range. For example, significant shortening would be expected if her cellular age proceeded as usual despite her severe developmental delay whereas longer telomeres would suggest that her cellular aging was delayed consistent with that of her somatic development. However, this was not the case. Subject's telomeres were considerably shorter than those of both infant controls as well as the age-matched control suggesting that her cellular age was advanced beyond infancy. Since the rate of telomeric shortening is substantially greater in infants than in adults (Zeichner et al., 1999), subject's prolonged infancy may have caused her to have shorter telomeres than age-matched controls. In addition, accelerated telomeric shortening has been reported in developmentally abnormal conditions including progeroid syndromes (Kruk et al., 1995). These circumstances may have resulted in her cellular age being appropriate for or perhaps even greater than her chronological age. Consistent with other reports showing a lack of telomerase (telomere terminal transferase) expression in human dermal fibroblasts from children (Oâ(TM)Donnell et al., 2008), subject's fibroblasts were telomerase negative. This fact suggests that possible enhancement of telomeric erosion did not stimulate compensatory increases in enzyme activity.
Pulled from: Richard F. Walker, Lawrence C. Pakula, Maxine J. Sutcliffe, Patricia A. Kruk, Jesper Graakjaer, Jerry W. Shay, A case study of 'disorganized development' and its possible relevance to genetic determinants of aging, Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, Volume 130, Issue 5, May 2009, Pages 350-356, ISSN 0047-6374, DOI: 10.1016/j.mad.2009.02.003.
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...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.
"fit to the last detail"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primordial_dwarf has descriptions of various forms of PD, none of which seem to match very well.
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.
As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible -W.B.
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
(scowl... limp... vicodin chomp)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A child who never grows up. Haven't we had enough stories about Michael Jackson?
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Episode Eight, season four the solution ended up being Lupus.
Why isn't there an "insensitive" mod point?
Would that be +1 or -1 ?
In Brazil there is a case of a 29 years old woman with the same "disease". The TV program that showed her is very sensationalist, the case is real. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3THlCV9hXTw (it's in Portuguese, but you are not missing much)
Sounds like Anne Poole.
http://qntm.org/?ashmore
That is all.