HIDDEN TALENTS
Despite some recent advances, there is still a great deal about the human brain that remains a mystery. We know it is made up of about 100 billion nerve cells, called neurons, connected like wires in a giant telephone exchange. We know messages pass down them like electrical signals and jump from one neuron to the next when chemicals known as neurotransmitters are released. 1 A B C D E But what we don’t fully understand are things like consciousness, intelligence and creativity.
Much of our knowledge comes from studying brain functions when things go wrong. There are some fascinating cases of where a bang on the head has brought about changes in personality or caused a person to become talented in a way they weren’t at all before the injury.
A famous case was Jason Padgett, a furniture salesman from Washington, who was mugged by two men after leaving a karaoke bar. He survived the attack, but was left unconscious.
2 A B C D E Padgett began to see patterns in everything he looked at, and to draw complex geometric figures. He seemed to understand the mathematical nature of the universe despite the fact that he had little formal academic training. The man who had barely scraped though his school exams ended up pursuing a career in mathematics as a number theorist.
Padgett’s is a case of acquired savant syndrome, a condition in which brain damage of some kind unlocks extreme mental abilities. All cases of acquired savant syndrome involve a head injury and the special abilities are typically in the fields of maths, languages, music or art. Having acquired the new skill, it is extremely rare for a savant to lose it. The change is permanent.
Another example of this syndrome is twenty-four-year-old Ben McMahon from Australia, who fell into a coma after a car crash. A week later he woke up speaking Mandarin Chinese. He had studied Chinese at school, but had never been fluent until the accident. McMahon works now as a Chinese-speaking tour guide in Australia.
Orlando Serrell suffered a head injury when he was knocked out in a baseball game at the age of ten. When he regained consciousness, he felt OK and finished the game. 3 A B C D E He has never made a mistake. For instance, ask him about 11 February 1983 and he says ‘Friday. It was raining that day. I had a pizza – pepperoni sausage.’
Some knocks on the head are more dramatic than others. Tony Cicoria, an orthopaedic surgeon, was struck by lightning as he was leaving a public payphone. Luckily there was a nurse nearby and she saved his life. Several weeks after the accident, Cicoria developed a strong desire to listen to classical piano music and play the piano even though he’d never wanted to play a musical instrument before. He is now a successful pianist and composer.
Although cases of female savants are not as common as those of males, there are some examples. Heather Thompson, a successful businesswoman from Washington, was loading her supermarket shopping into her car when the boot door crashed down onto her head. Although she never lost consciousness, the accident changed her life. Soon afterwards she felt an urge to paint, and overnight she became a talented abstract artist. She explained that her hands simply knew how to use colour and white spaces – it felt natural to her to paint.
There is no single theory to explain each case, but many researchers believe that acquired savant syndrome happens when the right side of the brain compensates for an injury to the left side. The condition is rare – fewer than one hundred cases have been identified. 4 A B C D E The challenge is how to access that hidden knowledge and skill without experiencing a bang on the head.