Medical miracle: New York boy living without cerebellum

by Neelam Goswami - February 14, 2011

Medical world is baffled by a 3-year-old boy from New York who is living without a cerebellum

, an important part in the central nervous system responsible for motor control, balance, coordination, and emotional control.

The toddler boy, named Chase Britton, was born prematurely and an MRI

scan at the age of one revealed he was completely missing his cerebellum

, a key part of his brain that plays a key role in the control of movement, in regulation of muscle tone, in helping maintain posture and in coordination of movement.

Boy without cerebellum bewildered docs

But what bewildered the doctors is that the boy is still growing, with managing to sit up on his own and learning to walk.

The boy’s condition is becoming even more puzzling for the doctors due to the fact that cerebellum was present in his brain when he was in the womb, according to FOXNews.com.

Citing a report by wgrz.com, FOX is reporting that Chase’s mother says she has ultrasound pictures that show it was there at some point during her pregnancy.

Boy’s legally blind
According to the Daily Mail, the little boy is legally blind and also has no pons - part of the brain stem that regulates basic functions including breathing and sleeping.

Chase now attends a special school near his New York home.

The little boy’s mother Heather Britton told AOL News: “We call him the Little Gremlin. He loves to play tricks on people. His goal in life is to make people smile,” as reported by the Daily Mail.

“No one had ever seen it before. And then we'd go to the neurologists and they'd say, ‘that's impossible, he has the MRI of a vegetable’.”

Brittons already suffered heartbreak
Heather and David Britton, who have a 13-year-old son Alex, had another son, Trey, who born 11 weeks early and died just four weeks after he was born in 2006. Trey died on the day he was scheduled to receive a liver transplant.

But doctors at the time assured the couple that Trey’s condition was not genetic, and they were safe to try again.

"We knew this is what we wanted to do," said Mrs. Britton. "And they said flukes don't happen twice."

"They said lightening doesn't strike twice," David added.

What happed to cerebellum?
But things seemingly did not go as smooth as expected.

This time again the couple’s baby born prematurely. Chase was born at 35 weeks after a complicated pregnancy. He was born healthy but showed slow developments throughout his first year, which his parents thought was due to the pregnancy complications.

"We knew he was developing a little slower, we thought it was because of the pregnancy," FOX quoted his mom as saying.

Doctors initially expected the boy had a mild case of cerebral palsy

, but when they did an MRI, they found no signs of a brain bleed, hemorrhage

or stroke, and no damage to any other part of his brain, instead they discovered he was completely missing his cerebellum.

"That's when the doctor called and didn't know what to say to us," Heather told AOL News. "No one had ever seen it before. And then we'd go to the neurologists and they'd say, 'That's impossible.' 'He has the MRI of a vegetable,' one of the doctors said to us."

Chase's case further baffled the doctors after ultrasound images of his brain during the pregnancy revealed he once had a cerebellum.

“That is actually a fundamental part of the dilemma. If there was a cerebellum, what happened to it?,” Dr Adre du Plessis, chief of Foetal and Transitional Medicine at the Children's National Medical Center inWashington D.C., told WGRZ.