We are
learning a lot here. The physical
effects of the attack were clearly minimal and perhaps no different that many ordinary
marginal concussions experienced on the playing field. What it did do was trigger a healing event localized
in the brain that involved a key area of the brain that needs to develop to
produce excellent math skills.
It also
produced other unwelcome effects that appear to be manageable. However, this is not indicated as a reliable
method to produce improved brain architecture.
What it clearly indicates however is that physical change can be induced
readily enough and that it needs to be delivered safely and targeted. A wide range of brain skills are prospective
targets as well.
Obviously just
delivering the correctly located growth hormones should be good enough. This it is likely that we can physically
improve all brains with a range of training and hormonal protocols. Doing this from eighteen through twenty five
would make good sense.
In this way we
stop assuming these skills are produced purely by genetic input and raise our
expectations.
How a
brain injury turned an average Joe into a math genius who is among only 40
people in the WORLD to have released an 'inner Einstein' after trauma
After
suffering a brain injury in 2002, Jason Padgett became obsessed with math and
physics
He
has since been diagnosed as one of only 40 people who have 'acquired savant
syndrome'
Those
with the syndrome develop talents for math, art or music after brain injuries
\
PUBLISHED: 14:23 GMT, 20 April
2014
Twelve years ago, Jason Padgett was a
college drop-out working at his dad's furniture store when a mugging at a
Tacoma, Washington karaoke bar changed his life forever.
Back then, the 31-year-old sported a mullet,
drove a red Camaro and was the 'life of the party'.
But after suffering a profound brain injury,
Padgett started to see the world in a whole new light - literally - and
became obsessed with math and physics.
He has since been diagnosed as one of only
40 with acquired savant syndrome, in which once-normal people become skilled in
math, art or music after a brain injury.
Padgett writes about the life-altering
experience in his new memoir out Tuesday, 'Struck by Genius: How a
Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel'.
It all started the night of September 13,
2002 when Padgett went out to a karaoke bar near his home and was mugged.
Two men attacked him from behind and
punched him in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious.
At the hospital, he was treated for a
bruised kidney but released the same night.
The next morning, Padgett woke up and found
that his vision had changed to include details he never noticed before.
He started the tap in his bathroom and
noticed 'lines emanating out perpendicularly from the flow.'
'At first, I was startled and worried for
myself, but it was so beautiful that I just stood in my slippers and stared,'
Padgett told the New York Post.
Padgett stopped going to work and spent
all of his time studying math and physics, focusing on fractals, which are
repeated geometric patterns.
Even though he showed no talent for art
before, he started drawing fractals in extreme detail - sometimes taking weeks
to finish the work.
But there was also a downside to his new
talents. While he was once outgoing, Padgett turned introverted and started to
spend all of his time at home, covering up his windows with blankets and
refusing visitors.
He became obsessed with germs and would wash
his hands until they were red, and wouldn't even hug his own daughter until she
washed her hands as well.
Padgett thought he was going crazy, but hope
came after watching a BBC documentary on Daniel Tammet, an autistic
savant.
'That’s it! That’s what’s going on with me.
Oh, my God! Someone else can see what I see!' Padgett remembers thinking.
After watching the film he decided to
reach out to Dr Darold Treffert, the leading expert on savantism, who diagnosed
him with 'acquired savant syndrome'.
There are currently just 40 people in the
world who have been diagnosed with the syndrome, becoming seemingly smarter
after a brain injury.
Padgett began to understand his situation
more when he traveled to Finland to be studied by Dr Berit Brogaard.
Dr Brogaard used fMRI machines to survey
Padgett's brain and found that the left side was more activated, especially in
the left parietal love where 'math lives'.
It seems that after the injury,
neurotransmitters flooded the left side of Padgett's brain and ultimately
changed the structure making him hyper-specialized.
After his diagnosis, Padgett decided to
apply his new-found mental capacity by enrolling in community college.
Now 43, Padgett believes he is an example
that everyone has untapped genius potential..
'I believe I am living proof that these
powers lie dormant in all of us,' Padgett writes in his memoir.
'If it could happen to me, it could happen
to anyone.'
2 comments:
There was a study done a few years ago that induced an improved sense for numbers by electrically stimulating-or shutting off, actually, a part of the brain. I have a pdf of the study on my other computer, but all the information seems to indicate latent abilities in our brains that are shut down most of the time for whatever reason.
I found the paper- it is in Perception 2006, volume 35 pages 837-845 titled 'Savant-like numerosity skills revealed in normal people by magnetic pulses"
Allan Snyder, Homayoun Bahramali, Tobias Hawker D John Mitchell
Centre for the Mind, Australian National University, Canberra
"we temporarily simulated the savant condition in normal people by inhibiting the left anterior lobe of twelve participants with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)"
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