A very strange way to finding your genius

What does it take to be an accomplished genius aside from genes, hardwork and practice, practice, practice? If you were to look at the registry compiled by a scientist who has, for decades now, been studying a particular kind of genius, then you would be inclined to say that a serious trauma to the head could be it. But why?

Darold Treffert is the Wisconsin psychiatrist who started this registry and he wrote an article called “Accidental Genius” in the September 2014 issue of the Scientific American. In his list, he had, by 2010, 32 “accidental geniuses” out of 319 known savants. These ‘accidental geniuses” are those whose extraordinary powers have been unleashed not from birth, but after a brain injury.

Some of those in his registry included Orlando Serrel, who was struck by a baseball as a boy and since then, can place any day of the week in the calendar, even describe the weather for that day. He is now 44 and has also even developed a “super memory” (hyperthymestic memory), that enables him to remember the tiniest details of any day.  What was remarkable is that his brain scans indicate that this is not based on his memory of a calendar but a sort of calculation that is happening in his unconscious.

At 40, Derek Amato suffered a severe concussion and even partly lost his hearing when he dove on the shallow part of the pool and hit his head. After being treated,  he suddenly felt he just had to play the piano and he began to  play it using the notes that results from transposing the black-and-white spots  he “sees” in his head. He has never touched the piano before his accident and now, he makes a living out of the music he makes and plays.

After a concussion from an assault, Jason Padgett, who runs futon stores, suddenly had a passion for math, physics and drawing geometric shapes. Padgett is a college drop-out but and admits to being one of those who hated math but now takes high level math courses.

Treffert cites work done by other scientists that seems to tell us that “accidental genius” comes at a “price” in the form of some “diminished activity in some brain areas” and some extraordinary heightening of activity in other areas. Also, in most cases, the damage is in the left hemisphere (usually the frontal lobe), which seems to awaken the right hemisphere.  He called this event “recruitment”. Then there seems to be what he called “rewiring” when new connections are made and then a “release’ of that new or once dormant capacity.

Do not try this at home

Of course, now we all ask, is there another way to become a genius at something without having to hit our heads? In a study published last year, gentle electrical currents were enough to significantly improve the mathematical abilities of subjects and this ability lasted for months.  While scientists are very clear in warning everyone that they should not try this on their own or on their children at home, science is not stopping at figuring out how accidental genius could happen without the occurrence of a head disaster.

We are not born as blank slates

If any, the presence of accidental geniuses among us, is proof, as what science has been saying for decades now, that we are not born as blank slates that our parents and teachers later “fill up”. Neuroscientist Steven Pinker’s book “How the Mind Works” is a book I would recommend as a primer for anyone who wants to understand the fascinating natural history of the mind. Reading it, you will find proof, some from everyday occurrences, some from studies, that we were not born “empty”.

For the ones I cited from Treffert’s article, none of them even demonstrated an initial particular love for the interests they developed after their injury. Passion for different things, or the seeds for it, could be latent in us. These “seeds” seem to already lay there, waiting to be liberated by hardwork, serendipity or even a serious concussion. The connections between those “seeds” and other neurons that will awaken or nurture them seem to be just waiting to be made. 

Superhumans?

While remarkable genius lurk among and within us, we still have not seen the power of the mind to exceed the limits of biology in the manner demonstrated by the X-Men or that really awful, supposedly science-inspired recent film, “Lucy”.

There are humans who seem to have carried certain abilities farther than most of us like the blind man who can do echolocation , but until it has been demonstrated that they are approaching the “Avenger” level, we cannot, in our spare time or on long weekends, try our luck in knocking ourselves out cold or nuking our bodies, hoping to be Super Dude or Super Dudette who can do quantum physics, pure math, paint, write and play a concerto, fly to the moon, see through walls and still be cool about it. Most days, many of us, just want to get through the day as one coherent being.

So, for now, cheers to being “ordinary” and being extraordinarily cool about it. – Rappler.com

Maria Isabel Garcia is a science writer. She has written two books,Science Solitaire and Twenty One Grams of Spirit and Seven Ounces of Desire. Her column appears every Friday and you can reach her at sciencesolitaire@gmail.com.