ANI
NEW YORK — A 21-year-old man from Brazil is suffering from a rare and mysterious condition called Cutis Verticis Gyrata, that has left his scalp looking like the surface of his brain.
The patient’s head looked completely normal two years ago, before his skin started to grow into thick, soft folds, resembling the surface of the brain, the authors of the study, Dr. Karen Schons and Dr. Andre Berber of the Hospital Universitario deSanta Maria in Brazil said.
The patient’s hair was also affected by the condition. It remained thick in the deep furrows of the skin, but thinned out over the large folds, the New York Daily News reported.
While the disorder has clearly affected the patient’s appearance, the condition is largely “a benign and essentially aesthetic condition,” NBC News quoted Schons as saying.
Given its rarity, very little is known about cutis verticis gyrata.
It remains unclear what causes the disorder, which predominantly occurs in males. Typical onset is puberty.
No one else in the patient’s family has suffered from this disorder, and the man has not experienced any other symptoms because of it.
The man is intellectually impaired and has struggled in school, however this is not related to his condition.
Schons said that the man doesn’t try to hide his condition.
“The patient did not have the habit of covering his head. The condition did not bother him cosmetically,” Schons said.
The findings are published in the New England Journal of Medicine. (ANI)
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