One of the most bizarre cases was discovered concerning patient M, who had a bullet lodged in his brain in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War. He woke up seeing the world backwards, with people and objects coming from the opposite side of where they actually were, a phenomenon that extended to his hearing and sense of touch as well. The world appeared upside down and in reverse.
M was able to read the time on a watch from any angle. As for colors, they were not attached to their objects, and things appeared in three copies. However, it was reported that the patient dealt with all this with complete calm.
Recently, he was studied by Spanish neuroscientist Justo Gonzalo, whose analysis led to a significant shift in how we view the brain, considering it a "strange injury that makes it hard for scientists to understand the patient’s brain." Gonzalo suggested that "the brain wasn't a collection of distinct sections, but rather, its various functions were distributed in gradients throughout the organ, a notion that contradicts the conventional wisdom of the 1940s."
Neuropsychologist Alberto Garcia Molina from the "Gutmann" institute in Spain stated, "The brain was viewed as if it were made up of small boxes. When you changed a box, it was assumed that there would be a tangible deficit." Gonzalo emphasized that "standard theories couldn't explain the issues that arose with the patient, prompting him to develop his theory on brain dynamics, surpassing the dominant view of how the brain functions."
In studying patient M and others with brain injuries, Gonzalo noted that "the effects of brain damage depend on the size and location of the injury." He also demonstrated that "these injuries do not destroy specific functions, but rather affect the balance of a variety of functions, as was the case with patient M."
Gonzalo identified three syndromes: "central syndromes (i.e., disorders across multiple senses), adjacent syndromes (with unequally distributed effects), and marginal syndromes (affecting pathways in the brain for specific senses)."
As the study states, "Individual case studies have taught us about brain function for hundreds of years, providing a valuable alternate source of scientific evidence for meta-analyses and large clinical trials today."
Ideas about the brain similar to Gonzalo's remain evidence that nothing fully explains patient M's case and his reverse vision.
