Perth girl Andie McAuliffe, 10, missing corpus callosum due to rare brain condition

Andie McAuliffe’s beautiful smile hides a problem deep inside her head. The 10-year-old is missing part of her brain. She was born without a corpus callosum, which is described as a “massive highway” in the brain connecting the left and right hemispheres. The rare condition — Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum (ACC) — has affected Andie in many ways since she was diagnosed in utero. Her challenges initially seemed insurmountable to her parents Maja Palacios and Andrew McAuliffe, but this strong-willed girl with a “special brain”, as she calls it, has defied expectations, belief and medical prognoses. “She’s super accepting. She’s confident in herself and extremely strong-willed. We say it’s Andie’s strong will that’s got her as far as she’s got,” Ms Palacios said. Andie had emergency surgery for a perforated anus at two-days old. A scan then revealed she’d had a massive stroke which has left her smaller and weaker on the right side of her body. The Champion Lakes schoolgirl also has epilepsy, low muscle tone and autism spectrum disorder, while ACC affects her social and communication skills, her memory, ability to learn, her strength and mobility. One in every 4000 babies is born with ACC and their life ahead depends on how well their brain can “rewire” without the corpus callosum to make the necessary neural connections. Andie had intensive therapy at Princess Margaret Hospital until she was three. Then her parents made the financially crippling decision to pay for private therapy. “We had to choose certain therapists at one time. When we were finally accepted for NDIS funding, it was a massive financial relief,” Ms Palacios said. “I truly believe that if she hadn’t had that level of intensive therapy she probably wouldn’t be doing as well as she is now. It’s made a huge difference.” Neuroscientist Linda Richards said corpus callosum disorders were associated with more than 300 congenital syndromes. “Imagine that you're living with a massive challenge ... a brain that doesn’t have this major highway connecting the two sides,” she said.