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Health Science - Concepts> Illness> Autism > Autistic Savants

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Becoming a Savant Savants are people who have “superhuman” mental abilities. They might be able to remember every word of a book they just read, or quickly estimate the sum of a complicated math... problem. This rare condition is often linked with autism. People with autism are socially disabled in terms of their interactions with others. Likewise, savants usually have difficulty assimilating with the rest of society. They have a hard time relating to everyone else. In a recent study, one savant said, “You’d think people would realize that we’re anxious and uncomfortable around them.” Another savant tried to explain his feelings by stating, “I’m not very flexible. I have my own schedule that I like to keep to, and I don’t care what people say.” Emerging evidence in the past few decades has suggested that savant-like abilities can be related to injury to the left hemisphere of the brain. It can also be due to lack of development of this part of the brain. The right hemisphere of the brain compensates for this, and as a result, savants develop new mental abilities that are different from those of ordinary people. Allan Snyder is a scientist in Sydney, Australia. He is known for his expertise in this area. Dr. Snyder decided to study the effect of electromagnetic pulses on different areas of the brain. He believed that he could bring out savant-like abilities in ordinary people by sending pulses to their brains. The study is an important one. If controlled correctly, people could certainly benefit from having these new abilities. Dr. Snyder’s results were predictable, based on his theory. He found that the pulses transformed the way the brain handled information. People were able to recognize details that they never saw before in images and words. The longer they received the pulses, the more details they retained. For example, a New York Times reporter drew a cat several times while receiving pulses to his brain. He noted that each image was more and more detailed. “I could hardly recognize them as my own drawings, though I had watched myself render each one, in all its loving detail.” Dr. Snyder’s persistence in this study has helped to give an idea of how a savant’s brain works. It has also shown that, with the right equipment, anyone can be a savant! [Show More]

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