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This weekend, I went to the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Among the various medical oddities of preserved fetuses was a small collection of anencephalics.  Babies with anencephaly are born without a brain and therefore only have half of a head (often combined with protruding eyeballs).  Physically shocking, due to their partial skull and missing brain, it was more shocking to learn that babies with anencephaly were not completely inactive. 

Most anencephalics are stillborns, but those born alive are capable of living for a few hours.  Even without a brain, these babies are still capable of breathing and reflex actions.  That is such an interesting concept: reactions without a brain.  When I read about these remarkable, brainless creatures, it reminded me of the nervous systems that had been disconnected from the body.   How is that possible? How can a human being subsist merely on reflex reactions?  According to the museum, these babies were unconscious, as well as unable to feel pain. 

If they couldn’t feel pain, shouldn’t that be an indication that their nervous systems weren’t functioning properly?  Anencephalics are also apparently able to react to sounds and touch.  How can this be?  Are our reactions to certain stimuli simply reflexes, and not conscious reflections of pain?