I've been thinking a lot recently about the phenomenon of the headshot. It seems like in every story and film I've encountered, shooting a zombie in the head will always, 100% of the time put it down for good.
But I've been wondering about this a lot recently. There are lots of examples in history of people being shot in the head and surviving (There's a *very* famous case of a nineteenth century man who had an iron bar pierce his brain. It allegedly caused major changes to his personality, but he lived for many years afterward). Most of the tissue in the brain is highly specialized, so there are lots of parts of the brain that a bullet could hit and cause non-fatal damage. A few millimeters to the left, and you're dead, but a few to the right, and all you lose is the ability to do long division.
Now, for a zombie, losing the part of their brain responsible for long division, or for recognizing friends and loved ones, or for speech, or for remembering to brush your teeth isn't going to be a serious disadvantage. And the follow-on trauma caused by infection and bleeding inside the skull isn't going to be much trouble for a zombie.
So it seems to me like a headshot should really only "kill" a zombie if it strikes an area of the brain directly necessary for their continued semblance of life. My first thought was the medulla oblongata -- the part of the brain responsible for autonomic processes. In a living human, even the tiniest amount of damage to that area would be fatal as the heart and nervous system would stop working. But then, zombies don't perform the same autonomic processes as living humans, so I'm not sure.
Perhaps it would have to be the motor cortex -- damaging that would disrupt a living human's ability to move. In a zombie, the inability to move is probably the best thing we could come up with to describe "real" death.
If you consider zombiism as a phenomenon more supernatural than scientific, the pinneal gland might be a more suitable candidate in the brain for headshotting: Descartes believed that it was the "seat" of the human soul.
So, what do you think? Is what we see in movies just a case of Hollywood-style "good luck" where every shot just happens to hit a sensitive area in the brain (but in real life, we'll all be disappointed to find that you don't just have to shoot the zombie in the head, but shoot him right through one very small part of the brain), or is there some other process at work here that I've overlooked that make -- paradoxical as it seems -- zombies even *more* susceptable to head injuries than a human being who is actually *using*all that brain tissue?
I think a good starting point would be to assume that if it doesn't kill a regular human it won't kill a zombie. Then again, with the various assortments of zombies out there, it could vary by how they were turned.
I think in "Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines" the cause of the zombie infection was a alien presence (its been a while since I read it) but the creature living inside the zombie's heads could actually repair damage done to the brain. The Vamps in the book had to be dead on to kill the puppet masters in the head as I recall. Thus it was pretty obvious why most of the humans in the story had been wiped out really quickly-it wasn't just a head shot that was necessary, it was a precision shot.
Hrmm, I have some ideas about this.
That incident you're quoting, from what I understand, was an explosive user ramming a steel or iron rod into a hole in a rock. It set off the powder compacted in the hole. This rod achieved wicked velocity through our poor experimental zombie's brain, but due to the nature of 'the projectile' (for emphasis for laterz) it carries in a nice straight almost surgical line, almost like a kind of medical procedure. Lucky for us, bad for zombie, worse for poor dude, it bisected some serious neurological tissue. The most important thing I think that is going on is projectile and velocity.
Now, you're modern bullet has a much higher velocity than this rod would have had. Find the picture, this thing was huge. But that aside, a bullet also tumbles in flight, unless it has a nice spin imparted by the barrel, or it is designed to tumble and fracture upon conection with tissue.
So, a bullet is design to be a high speed method of concussive destruction; some mushroom, or tumble or fragment. Its rare, I would think, that a modern bullet would make a nice surgical zip through a target like that rod. But the velocity and shape of the two projectiles is what makes me think there would be a big difference.
Plus, all the zombies I've put down have had heads like rotten oranges.
(There's a *very* famous case of a nineteenth century man who had an iron bar pierce his brain. It allegedly caused major changes to his personality, but he lived for many years afterward).
-redshoe
That would be the famous Phineas Gage, for anyone who's interested and didn't already know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
Great story, and a terrific lesson in why you should always know what you're hitting with your hammer.
Incidentally, if I'd had an iron bar driven through my head, I imagine I'd undergo a personality change, too. Hell, I undergo a personality change when I stub my toe!
I am guessing that the whole thing behind the idea of the "head shot" is that the poor ol' zombies head just gets decimated. So whatever is left of its brain that still allows for "life" is just shredded and that's why it dies.
Its not a surgical strike, like what you might get with an arrow or an iron bar, where by some freakish bit of luck you don't damage anything that is important.
Hey Jovos, welcome to the forums at last. The overzealous spam filter stopped you post from showing up but you have been retrieved from that Limbo.
Have a good time here 
Thanks, Hey all.
yeah, from what I understand they replicate the sort of damage in mice/whatever that the poor Gage received to understand more about how the physical parts of the brain relate to the whole of 'consciousness' whatever, thingy, whatever.
Gage went on after the accident to have these mood swings, totally uncontrollable outbursts, etc. Tells you what we don't know about neuroscience.
I'd prefer mood swings to the alternative.
I love the pics of his head.
Get suuuum.
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