During surgery of a 16-years-old girl, surgeons discovered a surprise guest- a tumor with a brain, skull, hair and neurons that could transmit electric impulses like a normal brain.
The tumor itself was only noticed when doctors were removing the girl’s appendix
The growth was discovered when the teenager, from Japan, had routine surgery to remove her appendix, reports the New Scientist.
When doctors cut the 10cm-wide tumour out, they found clumps of hair alongside the underdeveloped brain and a thin outer plate of bone.
A closer inspection revealed brain cells had organised themselves into a small version of a cerebellum , the part that sits under the brain’s two hemispheres.
Ovarian tumors that contain other types of body tissue are known as teratomas, and are fairly common. Usually they harbor nothing more than hair, muscle, or fat, although in some instances they have been found to contain miniature structures that resemble actual body parts, which are called homunculi.
It’s not known what causes ovarian teratomas, but one theory is that immature cells turn rogue and produce different body parts, New Scientist reported.
On rare occasions, doctors have reported teratomas featuring brain cells, although finding such a complete and well organized chunk of neural tissue is virtually unheard of. Describing the amazing discovery in the journal Neuropathology, the surgeons who removed the tumor explain that “three layers of the cerebellar cortex were well formed,” and that the fibers that connect neurons to one another – known as dendrites – were starting to take shape.Myelin, which insulates nerve fibers in order to allow for the speedy transmission of electrical impulses, was also found on much of the white matter. This, say the researchers, reflects the advanced maturation of the neural tissue.
Next to the cerebellum-like structure was a club-shaped clump of central nervous system tissue resembling a brainstem, which normally connects the brain to the spinal cord.
Fortunately, the unnamed patient didn’t suffer symptoms, but neurological symptoms can occur when the immune system labels the brain cells in the ovary as foreign and attacks— while also attacking the cells in the woman’s real brain. Other cases have reported that women with the unusual tumors have developed personality changes, paranoid thoughts, confusion, agitation, seizures or memory loss.The girl has now had the tumor removed and is recovering well.
Source:iflscience,foxnews,independent
Posted by , Published at January 07, 2017 and have
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