The Truth About the Cerebellum

[Dillon Rankine]

Dr. McClelland famously described the cerebellum falling out of the head wound. This is used as evidence of rearward exit as the cerebellum is at the back of the head. Right? Not exactly.

At the back of the head is the visual cortex, located in the occipital lobes which buttress the rear of the skull. Beneath these sits the cerebellum (generally thought to coordinate brain and motor activity), somewhat inward to the point where it is somewhat covered by the cerebrum.


Cerebellum is outlined.

Notice the thing to be left of the cerebellum on the MRI. Those structures and nuclei are crucial to brain and body function, including automatic breathing and heartbeat. JFK was given a tracheostomy at Parkland for what they noted was disturbed, but still present breathing. A bullet getting to the cerebellum without hitting these nuclei is slim, as even a totally lateral shot?s?one striking the cerebellum?disruptive force would knock them out of commission. Indeed, the whole reason (we think) one looses consciousness after a hard enough hit to the head is disruption of neural networks?and a good enough punch will do that.

McClelland said he saw both cerebral and cerebellur tissue exuding from the defect. Of course, it?s difficult to distinguish two types of brain tissue when they?ve been chewed up by a bullet, so this must?ve been an inference and, from what we?ll see, not a very good one, but not very bad either.

For starters, McClelland and all the doctors described a wound encompassing the occipital, parietal, and temporal bones of the skull. The most famous description is ?occipito-parietal.? Big problem. The parietal bones are on top of the skull, as the doctors famously indicated:



The autopsy report itself reads: ?There is a large irregular defect of the scalp and skull on the right involving chiefly the parietal bone but extending somewhat into the temporal and occipital regions.?

Refer back to the MRI. There?s no way the cerebellum came out of that, and indeed, cerrebellur damage was most likely only inferred, as Dr. Paul Peters staged he believed there to be cerebellum damage as it appeared to him that the occipital lobes were resting on the foramen magnum, the bone floor of the skull where he cerebellum ususally sits. (See pp. 317-324 of Lifton?s Best Evidence)

So he couldn?t see it damaged, but guessed it was. This is strange, considering the other doctors said the cerebellum could be observed through the injury.

Moreover, Boswell told the ARRB that not only was the cerebellum not damaged, it was still encased in dural tissue, while the cerebral cortex presented with torn dura. He further stated that the tentorium?dural partition of the cerebrum and cerebellum?was scathed.

But Humes stated that the cerebellum was slightly disrupted but without any actual lesions, and opined this was due a pressure wave generated by the bullet. So does this confirm the confusions of the Parkland staff? Maybe it being disrupted amongst all the cortical damage might have influenced their perceptions?

Photos of the brain apparently showed the HSCA a lot of interesting detail. They noticed the cerebellum disruption observed by Humes, stating that it was ?virtually intact.? So not totally normal, but not damaged. They also noted major discolouration of the right sylvian fissure (the ?gap? between the frontal and temporal lobes), with the temporal lobe being somewhat depressed. Notably, they observed massive fragmentation and disruption to the inferior cerebrum, mainly on the right side but also the left temporal area. (7 HSCA 129)

One last piece of the puzzle came from the pictures, maybe the most important fact about the head wound: the right cerebellum was visble in superior pictures of the brain?it could be seen through the damaged cortex! (Ibid.)


Superior view of brain, note cerebellum not visible.

So in conclusion, what the Parkland doctors likely saw was massive disruption of mainly the posterior parietal, but also temporal and superior occipital lobes which left a portal to observe a slightly off looking cerebellum, covered with shredded cortical tissue. They inferred damage to it based on these and other visual features.

This model explains how the doctors could?ve seen the cerebellum through the mainly parietal defect and the other evidence mentioned without invoking any particular theory as to the origin of the shot. It also ends the only basis for the speculation regarding forgery of medical or Z-film evidence. 

[Jerry Organ]

(Not trying to distract from the OP. Some notes for the general reader.)

Some were referring to ?regions? when they said ?occipito-parietal.? Not the bones per se by those names. Regions don't specifically overlie the bones. In addition, I suspect each doctor would probably have his own individual way of defining the gross regions of the head.


As you note, the Autopsy Report said: ?There is a large irregular defect of the scalp and skull on the right involving chiefly the parietal bone but extending somewhat into the temporal and occipital regions.?

There's that qualifier: region.

Also, the people supposedly showing where the gaping wound is. We don't know if they're indicating the rearmost extend of the wound or not. Those are screen-captures and don't tell exactly what they indicated. Someone could probably take the same videos and freeze-frame when the hands are further forward.

[Ray Mitcham]

Or further back.

[Jerry Organ]

Or further back.

Oh, those would have made the highlight reel for sure.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Not to sidetrack this too much but the - or an - obvious question is if the doctors saw a blowout hole in the rear of JFK's head then why didn't they see an entrance wound somewhere in the front of his head? None mention seeing one.

Where's the entrance wound for the bullet? Some conspiracy advocates see a hole in JFK's forehead in the "stare of death" photo. If one is there why did the doctors miss this?

The below is one conspiracy advocate's interpretation (using that term loosely):

[Gary Craig]

Article from Washington Evening Star, 27 Nov 1963, page A-5


"White House Won't Talk on Kennedy Autopsy" 

By the Associated Press

"The White House has so far declined to say whether an autopsy was performed on the body of President John F. Kennedy. 

The body was at the Bethesda Naval Hospital for approximately nine hours last Friday night and early Saturday morning. 

Civilian morticians were called to the hospital to prepare the body for burial. 
....
Doctors in Dallas who administered emergency treatment to the President said yesterday they do not know whether one or two bullets had hit him.  However, Federal authorities seemed fairly certain it was two bullets. 

One Washington source said, "There is some doubt whether the fatal bullet was the second shot or third shot.  The first shot is believed to have hit the President, but we're not sure about the second and third." 

Thus, he indicated, the first bullet to strike Mr. Kennedy might not have been fatal. 

One bullet struck Texas Gov. John Connally, wounding him. 

Dr. Kemp Clark, a brain surgeon who was summoned to the emergency room of the Dallas hospital where the President was taken after the shooting, said in Dallas yesterday that a bullet did such massive damage to the right rear of the President's head that the attending surgeons could not tell whether it had entered or come out of the head there. 

"A missile had gone in, or come out the back of his head, causing extensive lacerations and loss of brain tissue, " Dr. Clark said. 

Dr. Clark said he was unable to say whether the wound in the President's neck, below the Adam's apple, was due to the same bullet that had coursed through the President's brain.  He said there could have been two bullets. 

Dr. Malcolm Perry of Dallas, who also treated the President after the shooting, had said on Friday that he was unable to determine whether one or two bullets were involved." 

[end of article]