Brain Injury Produces Math Talent

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

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By ASHLEY COLLMAN

PUBLISHED: 14:23 GMT, 20 April 2014 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2608861/How-brain-injury-turned-average-Joe-math-genius-40-people-WORLD-released-inner-Einstein-trauma.html

http://www.struckbygenius.com/

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.'