现实版本杰明巴顿奇事：兄弟俩一起返老还童

Matthew Clark, 39, of Lincoln, England and his brother Michael Clark, 42, last year were reportedly given a vague diagnosis of terminal leukodystrophy. The brothers' particular version of the disorder caused them to lose the ability to think and behave as adults, The Telegraph reported.

After a phase of throwing temper tantrums and watching cartoons, the brothers have gradually lost the ability to talk and walk, leaving them crawling around their parents' home.

The two men still look their age, albeit with a disarming air of innocence about them, but they are beginning to exhibit physical signs of their regression back into childhood.

For their parents, Christine and Anthony Clark, it is heartbreaking. “There are no words to describe how we feel. It’s devastating,” says Mr Clark, the man who watched both of his sons grow up and marry, who looked on proudly as Michael joined the RAF and Matthew became a father himself.

“It’s a devastating disease," the men's father, Anthony Clark, told The Telegraph. "Both of them are very childlike now.”

Neither paper indicated which form of leukodystrophy the men have--there are about 40 known types of the largely genetic brain cell-damaging disorder--or who diagnosed the brothers.

Is it really possible for adults to revert to a childlike state? Experts in the U.S. told The Huffington Post that it is--though it occurs very rarely.

"'Leukodystrophy' is a term used for progressive disorders that causes damage or deterioration to the white matter of the brain," Dr. Robert Marion, chief of genetics and developmental medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, told The Huffington Post.

Dr. Marion, who said he had no specific knowledge of the brothers, added that the disorder they reportedly have is hereditary and that the mental deterioration happens gradually.

There are infantile, juvenile and adult forms of leukodystrophy. As for cases that apparently arise in adulthood, Dr. Marion said, "It’s possible that nobody has really noticed it until its gotten so bad that it's reached this level of detection. They reach adulthood or later adolescence and they’ve attained everything they could, then start having neurological symptoms. They can have dementia, they start losing their memory or their ability to function...they’ll lose their ability to walk, wind up wheelchair-bound."