Struck by Genius: How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel by Jason Padgett, Maureen Ann Seaberg
Authors: Jason Padgett, Maureen Ann Seaberg
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I found these black-and-white structures moving from left to right, which in fact would represent, in my mind, a fluid and continuous stream of musical notation,” Amato later wrote in a blog post on the Wisconsin Medical Society’s website. “I could not only play and compose, but I would later discover that I could recall a prior played piece of music as if it had been etched in my mind’s eye.”
In an interview on the
Today
show, Amato admitted that there were downsides to the injury. “I deal with the fluorescent-light issues,” he told Matt Lauer. “I collapse sometimes out of the blue. And the migraines and the headaches are intense. And my hearing is half gone.” He called the lingering symptoms “a price tag on this particular gift.” When I heard him say that on the video, I thought of my own OCD, PTSD, and other problems. I agreed with him that though these issues presented a challenge, I wouldn’t trade my new abilities for life without them.
Orlando Serrell is another interesting acquired savant. In 1979, when he was ten years old, he was playing baseball, and while he was making a run for first base, a baseball struck him on the left side of the head. He fell to the ground and remained there for a few moments, then got up and continued to play. “I didn’t tell my parents, therefore, I had no medical treatment for the accident,” he wrote on his website. He did have a headache for a long while following the incident, he said. Soon, he noticed he had developed the ability to do calendrical calculations; he could tell you the day of the week associated with any date. If you said,
March 28, 1957,
he would answer, correctly,
Thursday.
He can also tell you what the weather was and what he was doing on any given day since his accident. In 2002 he was invited by NBC’s
Dateline
to undergo a brain scan at Columbia University, and he appeared in a special on savants. His case made me want to know exactly which parts of my brain had been affected by my injury.
I was glad to finally come across the case of a female with savant syndrome, as the condition is even more rare in women. According to experts, when it comes to savant syndrome, men outnumber women by about six to one. Why? Researchers are still trying to figure it out, but some theories suggest that it may have something to do with the way the brain develops in the womb. Also, the savant syndrome is often associated with autism, and autism is more common in males.
The lone female savant I came across was a child named Nadia. In the 1970s, she drew beautiful pictures of horses, and her drawings were so fine they were compared to those of Rembrandt and Leonardo da Vinci. But she lost her drawing abilities when she learned to speak, according to the British psychologist Lorna Selfe.
I cobbled together what I was learning about acquired synesthesia and savantism to get a better picture of what was going on in my own mind. The stories of people with such gifts were comforting to me, though I hadn’t yet come across anyone with what I suspected I had, both acquired synesthesia and acquired savantism. The experiences of savants and synesthetes still didn’t explain what was happening in my life. Even Tammet had had what I considered the good fortune to be born the way he was. I doubted he could truly relate to my conflicted feelings about my new identity. My alternating shock and euphoria about the emergence of my new sensory perceptions added a layer to the experience I’m not sure people who’ve had synesthesia or savant syndrome their whole lives can imagine. Would I ever feel at home in my own skin and have that sort of acceptance and grace about my abilities?
Though I looked to Tammet and other fellow synesthetes and savants with extraordinary gifts for clues and guidance, I was left with the feeling I would have to forge my own path.
Chapter Seven
The Edge of a Circle
I N MY ISOLATION , I felt the profound change of the shape of my own
In an interview on the
Today
show, Amato admitted that there were downsides to the injury. “I deal with the fluorescent-light issues,” he told Matt Lauer. “I collapse sometimes out of the blue. And the migraines and the headaches are intense. And my hearing is half gone.” He called the lingering symptoms “a price tag on this particular gift.” When I heard him say that on the video, I thought of my own OCD, PTSD, and other problems. I agreed with him that though these issues presented a challenge, I wouldn’t trade my new abilities for life without them.
Orlando Serrell is another interesting acquired savant. In 1979, when he was ten years old, he was playing baseball, and while he was making a run for first base, a baseball struck him on the left side of the head. He fell to the ground and remained there for a few moments, then got up and continued to play. “I didn’t tell my parents, therefore, I had no medical treatment for the accident,” he wrote on his website. He did have a headache for a long while following the incident, he said. Soon, he noticed he had developed the ability to do calendrical calculations; he could tell you the day of the week associated with any date. If you said,
March 28, 1957,
he would answer, correctly,
Thursday.
He can also tell you what the weather was and what he was doing on any given day since his accident. In 2002 he was invited by NBC’s
Dateline
to undergo a brain scan at Columbia University, and he appeared in a special on savants. His case made me want to know exactly which parts of my brain had been affected by my injury.
I was glad to finally come across the case of a female with savant syndrome, as the condition is even more rare in women. According to experts, when it comes to savant syndrome, men outnumber women by about six to one. Why? Researchers are still trying to figure it out, but some theories suggest that it may have something to do with the way the brain develops in the womb. Also, the savant syndrome is often associated with autism, and autism is more common in males.
The lone female savant I came across was a child named Nadia. In the 1970s, she drew beautiful pictures of horses, and her drawings were so fine they were compared to those of Rembrandt and Leonardo da Vinci. But she lost her drawing abilities when she learned to speak, according to the British psychologist Lorna Selfe.
I cobbled together what I was learning about acquired synesthesia and savantism to get a better picture of what was going on in my own mind. The stories of people with such gifts were comforting to me, though I hadn’t yet come across anyone with what I suspected I had, both acquired synesthesia and acquired savantism. The experiences of savants and synesthetes still didn’t explain what was happening in my life. Even Tammet had had what I considered the good fortune to be born the way he was. I doubted he could truly relate to my conflicted feelings about my new identity. My alternating shock and euphoria about the emergence of my new sensory perceptions added a layer to the experience I’m not sure people who’ve had synesthesia or savant syndrome their whole lives can imagine. Would I ever feel at home in my own skin and have that sort of acceptance and grace about my abilities?
Though I looked to Tammet and other fellow synesthetes and savants with extraordinary gifts for clues and guidance, I was left with the feeling I would have to forge my own path.
Chapter Seven
The Edge of a Circle
I N MY ISOLATION , I felt the profound change of the shape of my own
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