How a Baseball Injury Made A Genius (Savant Syndrome)

orlando is a boy from the united states who like many other boys enjoys doing sports he and his friends spent many afternoons playing baseball while chatting and having fun what he didn't know was that this activity would change his life forever one afternoon he was hit in a hat with a baseball after a few seconds he regained his consciousness and got back up he didn't tell his parents about the incidents and developed a headache over the next weeks but eventually the headache stopped and the boy nearly forgot what has happened soon however he realized that he gained incredible abilities he could remember the numbers and letters of car licenses very easily could recite long texts and could remember each detail about individual days when his family realized that a boy had these new abilities they went to see a doctor after inquiring about the accident the doctor ran some tests and it became clear orlando had savan syndrome savant syndrome is a condition that gives people incredible but narrow talents my name is gunsternik and today we'll talk about savann syndrome on how seemingly ordinary people suddenly become extraordinary [Music] the van syndrome is a rare condition that gives people special abilities in distinct areas of life affected individuals are highly gifted in music maths arts calendar calculating or mechanical skills they often play piano by ear with perfect pitch paint elaborate masterpieces or know within a second what day january 11 4096 will be people with samantha syndrome also have a unique memory there's a man who recited the first 22 000 numbers of pie after reading through them once and another man who knows over 6 000 books by heart to understand savannah syndrome better we will talk about three different people who acquired their abilities in different ways through injuries dementia or autism spectrum disorder the boy from the beginning of this video acquired incredible talents after he has been hit by a baseball but there is one very crucial detail the left part of his brain has been hit the brain is a highly complicated organ and in order to work different parts need to fulfill certain tasks while the left hemisphere of the brain more tends to solve analytical tasks the right hemisphere is more associated with creativity of course in reality it's all a bit more complicated but let's leave it like that the accident left damages to orlando's analytical left hemisphere as a response the more creative right hemisphere started to compensate for the weakened left hemisphere in principle it works like this when brain cells have to fulfill certain tasks they become active together each time brain cells are active together they strengthen their connection leading to more orchestrated actions if one brain region is damaged another brain region might suddenly get signals to become active instead leading to new connections and over time this can completely wire the brain the boy probably gained his intuitive talents as his more creative right hemisphere became responsive to tasks which are normally solved by the analytical left hemisphere but before you go out to get hit by a baseball don't do it it's a very rare condition otherwise the cast of checkers should have all become mash progenies by now another patient let's call him george acquired savannah syndrome after being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia frontal temporal dementia is a condition where especially the front and the sides of the brain become damaged over time before his disease george was a businessman who was not really interested in art in his 50s he started to perceive his environment differently sometimes sounds or lights felt very intense his character changed his language deteriorated and he became forgetful but while all that happened he suddenly painted more and more beautiful pictures people were so impressed by his works that he won several art contests although his brains seemed to be more and more damaged by his dementia some parts from new connections leading to his talent george's case shows us that even elderly people can suddenly acquire savan syndrome but there is one group of people where we find savan syndrome very frequently people who suffer from the autism spectrum disorder in general autism is characterized by difficulties in managing complex social interactions hyperactive behavior narrow interests and unusual emotional responses it is estimated that over 10 percent of people with autism spectrum disorder also develop cervan syndrome will is a man who has been diagnosed with asperger syndrome a condition which belongs to the autism spectrum disorder as a boy will has never been particularly interested in calendars i mean yeah they are not very interesting when he was five he suddenly developed a unique talent for calculating dates from particular days over the next years he also developed an obsession for drawing he was so good that his paintings have been shown in numerous exhibitions in the united states and europe at the same time his calendar calculation skills became exceedingly good he could predict the days of dates between the year 1591 up to several thousand years into the future if we look into the brain of a person with autism spectrum disorder we often find fewer connections between different parts of the brain on the other hand brain cells form more local connections to each other it is possible that in will's case the lack of these connections led to unusual new connections which are associated with savannah syndrome but what we additionally have to say is that people with autism spectrum disorder often have obsessive behavior when it comes to their skills and interests this means that they might excessively exercise something they're interested in for example drawing people with autism spectrum disorder also have a natural gift for attention to detail and all of that combined might then explain why you find savant syndrome so often in people with autism spectrum disorder so you might not say hey wait a minute there are people who acquire seven syndrome later in life can i do that as well well a couple of scientists try to find out whether we can induce seven syndrome based on the knowledge that the left hemisphere is especially damaged in people with savan syndrome they decided to block the left anterior temporal lobe again especially this region is damaged in people with savant syndrome we can deactivate this brain region by transcranial magnetic stimulation here we use a magnet to apply magnetic pulses to the brain which influences the activity of brain cells in this manner the left anterior temporal lobe can be inactivated for a while in a study patients were then given a classical riddle the riddle consists of 9 dots the goal is to connect all 9 dots using just four straight lines however you're not allowed to lift your pen up or retract a line so for example we can start here and nope if you want you can pause the video right now and try to reel yourself i just wait here i mean yeah all right the solution to this riddle is to draw outside the dots yeah it's a bit mean in a small study none of the participants could solve this riddle after magnet has inhibited the left anterior temporal lobe however over 40 of participants were able to solve it in another study people had to read texts upon stimulation the goal of the participants was to find errors in long paragraphs which are easily missed such as the duplication of the word there ha gotcha two out of 11 participants showed improvements after the stimulation and these effects vanished within an hour does it mean that we should stick a magnet to a head when we have to write a course work well of course no we are not compasses it doesn't work like that it only means that we might have the ability to get savann syndrome if we inhibit parts of our brain so we do not fully understand savann's syndrome yet however we do know that savannah syndrome is accompanied by changes in the brain where the right hemisphere compensates for the left hemisphere we also know that we all theoretically have the potential to acquire surround syndrome people with autism spectrum disorder are especially prone to develop surveillance syndrome due to changes in the brain their attention for detail and their special focus but in the end savan syndron remains enigmatic but also astonishing i hope that you like this video if so leave a like and subscribe if you're new here someone of you suggested this topic so what should i cover next let me know in the comment section and with that i'll see ya we cannot really acquire savvan syndrome talents but we can lower our risk to get brain diseases such as alzheimer's disease click on this video if you want to know more if you want to know how scientists hack eyes to cure blindness you might like this video

Channel: Sciencerely

Views: 1,216,140

Keywords: savant syndrome, savant syndrome explained, savant syndrome piano, savant syndrome brain, autism spectrum disorder adult, acquired savant syndrome, savant syndrome person, autism, genius, lifelablearner, brain research

Id: m_GzwxNaI_Q

Length: 8min 38sec (518 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021