I'm sorry, that sounds awful. I think it definitely could be any combination of those things. The brain is a very delicate and sensitive machine.
I don't have specific recommendations, but I think that the potential for recovery should be much higher than what people with neurodegenerative diseases suffer from, like what was described in this article.
There're a lot of risk and uncertainty trade-offs, and everyone reacts to things differently due to their genetics and what they're suffering from, but nootropic substances could potentially help here. They could possibly help as a short-term aid that improves memory and attention to detail while the nootropic is in effect, and some can actually potentially create long-term improvements.
They're very under-studied, and they definitely require a lot of careful research, gradual self-testing, and acceptance of some risk (some nootropics have almost no risk, and some have a moderate level), but it could be worth looking into.
> The brain is a very delicate and sensitive machine
Something as simple as a prion can completely destroy it and then there's Phineas Gage, someone whom all neurobio students learn about on day one of their course. Neuroplasticity can be quite amazing.
Yep. A lot of it is personal biology and a lot is also chance. You can be shot in the head and survive with not much cognitive impairment, or you could hit your head against something and be unable to speak or feed yourself for the reset of your life. We are very pliable but it's sad that we're also still so fragile, at the level of the "mind" / "soul". Hopefully there'll eventually be a day where consciousness can be hosted in a much more safe way, for both biological and total immortality.
I don't think it's exactly correct to say "a prion" can destroy it. One single prion I don't think would cause significant damage in most cases, if there could somehow be only a single one. The issue is that it's believed a prion will gradually cause nearby proteins to misfold and also become prions, and then it probably starts recurring exponentially like a pathogen infection, and your brain physically deteriorates and falls apart with no way to stop or reverse it. A very similar deterioration process appears to happen with other disorders like Alzheimer's and the form of dementia discussed in this article, though the root cause still isn't understood.
I don't have specific recommendations, but I think that the potential for recovery should be much higher than what people with neurodegenerative diseases suffer from, like what was described in this article.
There're a lot of risk and uncertainty trade-offs, and everyone reacts to things differently due to their genetics and what they're suffering from, but nootropic substances could potentially help here. They could possibly help as a short-term aid that improves memory and attention to detail while the nootropic is in effect, and some can actually potentially create long-term improvements.
They're very under-studied, and they definitely require a lot of careful research, gradual self-testing, and acceptance of some risk (some nootropics have almost no risk, and some have a moderate level), but it could be worth looking into.