Is This Possible?
 

Someone I know claims that the rightside of their brain is mostly dead, due to something that occured to them when they were a wee baby.

Is it actually possible for someone who talks and interacts and overall acts normal to have half(Or most of half) their brain dead?

Or are they just BSing?

Ponder!!!!

And their left hand is all funky, it doesn't work properly for them.

It...certainly SEEMS possible. I mean, you only use 10% of the brain to begin with, certain parts of it dying might not really affect you all that much..

Certainly is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispherectomy
which is surgically removed.
Also there are cases of complete unilateral lesions and such.

Also very useful are split brain cases, which are much studied in psychology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_brain
Those links are pretty short but should get you started. I'm going out but I can explain more when I get back of the crazy one sided brain effects (like how they can pass messages through extraneous body parts from damaged parts of the brain to others) but this should start.

Wow if this is true, then it really sucks to be that guy. :( Is he a friend of yours, Arlan?

Nono that 10% myth isn't true at all.

I have PROOF damn you.

I'm with DFM on this one. We totally use more than 10% of our brains.

Now, supposedly Man doesn't use his brain to it's fullest, which is really a matter of uncoordinated thinking (thinking without logical process, for example),but we use 100% of our brain unless certain percents have literal holes in them. Or Tumors. Whichever sucks more.

Now s/he's probably not Bsing, as his/her left hand does not work well, which would imply rightly that his/her right side of the brain has taken a hit (but not heavy enough that s/he would be unable to move his/her hand at all). However, if s/he was able to tell you it fairly well, and remember that s/he has taken a hit, it can't be too damaged. I forget exactly what the right side of the brain does, but it seems to me that at least the higher functioning parts of his brain are still working, so s/he should be perfectly capable of moving on with life, only needing aid for certain deficiencies, major or minor.

Here's a very thorough, very detailed look on the myth.

i read something like that not to long ago. some kind of disease that can cause like, non-stop seizures in young kids. the only known treatment is to remove the malfunctioning half of the brain. if the procedure is done early enough in a person's development, the remaining half will pick up the slack. whats wierd is that theres no memory loss involved.

just one more thing on the very long list of "Shit Involving the Human Brain that We Don't Understand". (now in paperback!)

Right brain handles the artistic stuff. Images, creativity, jingles, the left side of the body, etc. The left brain is the vulcan. Numbers, logic, words, the right side of the body, etc.



@ OP: Seeing as the damage isn't severe enough to impact your friend's everyday functionality, I'd say there's either been some healing, or the damage wasn't so severe.

But to answer the question, yes, it's very possible.