Latent savant: Would that be everyone?

Julia Set Fractal  (by Eequor)

Tanya Lewis of Live Science writes about the unusual case of a nonacademic furniture salesman who became a mathematical savant as a result of a severe brain injury.

However, what was unusual might have been the injury rather than its result.  In other words, everyone might be a latent mathematical (or artistic, musical, etc.) savant, with brains that would produce similar results if “rejiggered” in similar ways.

This particular savant, Jason Padgett, explained that before his injury he had never so much as cracked open a book.  After his injury, “he noticed that everything looked different.”  He began spontaneously seeing the world “through a lens of geometry” – drawing complex shapes as a mathematical genius would.

Lewis states that research findings “suggest such skills may lie dormant in all human brains.” Professor Berit Brogaard from the University of Miami, who scanned Padgett’s brain with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and then “zapped” his brain with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), concluded that “most likely, there is something dormant in everyone that Padgett tapped into.”

Nevertheless, there may be serious trade-offs in acquiring such talents.  After the injury, Padgett

also began experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder and severe social anxiety.      

Resources

http://news.yahoo.com/beautiful-mind-brain-injury-turns-man-math-genius-124815192.html

Copyright May 6, 2014 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved