Just minutes after his left leg was all but severed in a farming accident, Albert Hattum says, he accepted the fact he’d probably lose his limb. What he didn’t accept is that he wouldn’t walk again, drive farm equipment or have a life less full than before his leg was sucked into his John Deere combine after he tried to remove a rock lodged in its blades.

A team of Mississippi and California researchers have managed to prove something scientists have hoped to be true about the brain.

It can be rewired.

The research teams’ findings, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), could one day translate into an effective treatment for patients with autism spectrum disorders, said the report’s co-author Dr. Rick Lin, professor of neurobiology and anatomical sciences at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

The findings, for now, are limited to the study’s test subjects – rats. But the results have proven that these animals’ brains can be rewired via intense auditory behavioral training, said Lin.

The intricacies of a brain’s wiring remains one of the largest puzzles before scientific researchers who have spent years to solve pieces of the complex mechanism. Yet for every question answered, more seem to appear. 

The Medical Center is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff: