Brain injury can be a devastating disability, and given the brain’s complexity and the differences in the types, locations, and extent of damage, the effects of a brain injury can be wide and varied. Some occur immediately, and some may take days or even years to appear.
 

Some less-common symptoms of brain injury include heterotopic ossification (abnormal bone growth in selected joints that typically occurs within nine months of injury), chronic neuroendocrine problems (weight gain, thyroid disorders, etc. that sometimes occur in women years after injury), and typographic dislocation (the inability to navigate familiar places, like your hometown or even your own house).
 

Any one of the symptoms can alter or devastate a person’s life, and brain injury is made all the more difficult by the fact that it’s often hard to see and just as often misdiagnosed or dismissed as “personality problems” or a mental disorder. But in fact, it is a serious and legitimate illness whose sufferers deserve all the help and support they can get. © 2008 King

HOW DOES THE BRAIN WORK ? (New page opens with this link)
By Sandra Blakeslee,
Source: © New York TimesPublished: November 11, 2003

In the continuing effort to understand the human brain, the mysteries keep piling up. Consider what scientists are up against. Stretched flat, the human neocortex -- the center of our higher mental functions -- is about the size and thickness of a formal dinner napkin.

With 100 billion cells, each with 1,000 to 10,000 synapses, the neocortex makes roughly 100 trillion connections and contains 300 million feet of wiring packed with other tissue into a one-and-a-half-quart volume in the brain. ...more...