Savant Syndrome, People With Superhuman Cognitive Abilities
The mechanisms that make the brain function are not only revealed through deficits caused by injuries.
In some cases, it is l the existence of special or increased abilities which offers us clues about the functioning of the human nervous system and how abnormal brain function does not have to be synonymous with deficiencies. He Savant syndromealso know as Sage Syndromeis a clear example of this.
Savant Syndrome is a broad concept that encompasses a series of cognitive symptoms abnormalities that are related to prodigious mental abilities It may seem like an overly ambiguous definition, but the truth is that the so-called savant They can display different types of heightened cognitive abilities: 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 stand out are usually more or less well defined, and do not have to 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 cost the person with savantism any practice or effort.
One of the most famous cases of savantism is that of Kim Peek, which we already talked about in a previous article. Peek was able to memorize practically everything, including every page of the books he read. However, it is not the only case of people who have Savant Syndrome, and many of them have a similar ability to make everything recorded in memories.
Some problems
Although Wise Syndrome refers to increased cognitive abilities, in many cases it is associated with deficits in other aspects, such as poor social skills or speech problems, and some researchers believe that it is related to the autism spectrum or the Wise Syndrome. Asperger’s.
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 constantly compete for the resources necessary to function and there is a decompensation In the way they are distributed, it is not unreasonable that some capacities grow at the expense of others.
However, part of the reasons why savantism does not have to be all advantages lies beyond the autonomous functioning of the brain. Specifically, in the social fit of these people. Having a series of faculties that can be labeled under the idea of Savant Syndrome is, in part, perceiving the world in a very different way than other people do.
Therefore, if the two parties are not sensitized enough to put themselves in the other’s shoes and make life together easier, the person with savantism can suffer the consequences of the marginalization or other barriers that are difficult to overcome.
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.
Specifically, 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 enough left for us to have a complete photograph of a neurological phenomenon as complex as this one.
