Savant Syndrome, people with superhuman cognitive abilities

There are people with absolutely exceptional abilities: the "savants".

The mechanisms that make the brain work are not only revealed through deficits caused by injuries.

In some cases, it is lt is the existence of special or enhanced abilities that offer clues about the functioning of the human nervous system and how abnormal functioning of the brain can be caused by injury. and how abnormal brain function need not be synonymous with deficits. The Savant SyndromeSyndrome, also known as Savant Syndromeis a clear example of this.

What is Savant Syndrome?

The Savant Syndrome is a broad concept that encompasses a series of cognitive symptoms symptoms that are related to prodigious mental abilities. It may seem too ambiguous a definition, but the truth is that the so called savant can boast different types of enhanced cognitive faculties: from an almost photographic memory to the ability to write sentences backwards at high speed or to do complex mathematical calculations intuitively without prior training in mathematics.

However, the areas in which people with savantism are usually more or less well delimited, and do not necessarily involve only processes related to logical and rational thinking. For example, it is perfectly possible for Savant Syndrome to express itself through a spontaneous ability to create artistic pieces.

Although Savant Syndrome serves as a catch-all category to label many very different cases, almost all of them have in common the fact that they involve automatic and intuitive psychological processes, which do not require practice or effort on the part of the person with savantism.

The case of Kim Peek

One of the most famous cases of savantism is that of Kim Peekwhich we talked about in a previous article. Peek was able to memorize practically everything, including all the pages of the books she read. However, he is not the only case of a person with Savant Syndrome, and many of them have a similar ability to make everything that everything is recorded in memories.

Some problems

Although Savant Syndrome refers to enhanced cognitive abilities, in many cases it is associated with deficits in other areas, such as poor social skills or speech problems, and some researchers believe it is related to autism spectrum or Asperger's Syndrome.

This is consistent with a conception of the brain as a set of limited resources that must be well managed. If many areas of the brain are constantly competing for the resources needed to function and a decompensation occurs decompensation in the way they are distributed, it is not unreasonable that some capacities grow at the expense of others.

However, part of the reason why savantism need not be all advantages lies beyond the autonomous functioning of the brain. Specifically, in the social fit of these people. To have a number of faculties that can be labeled under the idea of Savant Syndrome is, in part, to perceive the world in a very different way than other people do.

Therefore, if both parties are not sufficiently sensitized to put themselves in the place of the other and make life together easier, the person with savantism can suffer the consequences of marginalization or other barriers that are difficult to overcome.

What causes savantism?

The quick answer to this question is that it is not known. However, there are indications that many of these cases can be explained by a functional asymmetry between the two cerebral hemispheres, or something that alters the way these two halves work together.

In particular, it is believed that the expansion of some functional areas of the right hemisphere that appears to compensate for some deficiencies in the left hemisphere could be the cause of such a varied set of symptoms. However, there is still a long way to go before we have a complete picture of such a complex neurological phenomenon.

Bibliographic references:

• Corrigan, N. (2012). Toward a better understanding of the savant brain. Comprehensive psychiatry, 53(6), pp. 706 - 717.
• Howlin, P. (2012). Understanding savant skills in autism. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 54(6), pp. 484 - 484.
• Treffert, D. (2014). Savant Syndrome: Realities, Myths and Misconceptions. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 44(3), pp. 564 - 571.