Chinese doctors were puzzled when tests of a young woman came back and showed that she was missing a critical part of her brain, yet had led a normal life.

A 24-year-old woman had checked herself into the hospital following a month-long spell of dizziness and nausea. She told doctors she couldn't walk until age four and had never been able to walk steadily.

When doctors performed scans on the woman's brain, they found she had no cerebellum, an area that controls walking and other body movement. There was simply a large hole where the region should be, filled with cerebrospinal fluid.

"CT and MRI scans revealed no remnants of any cerebellar tissues, verifying complete absence of the cerebellum," the doctors wrote in her report. The medical records were published Aug. 22 in the journal Brain.

The "little brain," the cerebellum's Latin translation, helps with coordination and fine muscle movement. However, this Chinese woman had only mild or minor motor problems, like slurred pronunciation.

"It shows that the young brain tends to be much more flexible or adaptable to abnormalities," Dr. Raj Narayan, a professor of neurosurgery at North Shore University Hospital in New York who spoke about the woman's case with Fox News, said. "When a person is either born with an abnormality or at a very young age loses a particular part of the brain, the rest of the brain tries to reconnect and to compensate for that loss or absence."

While this case is extremely surprising, it is not the first case of a person to be without a cerebellum. There have been eight known cases like this, according to researchers. But in those instances, the patients were infants or children who had extreme physical and mental impairment. Narayan said there may be more cases that go unfound or unreported.