5 replies to this topic

[3AlarmLampscooter]

Did a little browsing for newer research on Savant syndrome, and ran across one particularly interesting review.

http://www.researchg...5ec73f6b493.pdf

Superior perception, peaks of ability, and savant skills are often observed in the autistic phenotype. The enhanced perceptual functioning model (Mottron et al., 2006a) emphasizes the increased role and autonomy of perceptual information processing in autistic cognition. Autistic abilities also involve enhanced pattern detection, which may develop through veridical mapping across isomorphic perceptual and non-perceptual structures (Mottron et al., 2009). In this paper, we elaborate veridical mapping as a specific mechanism which can explain the higher incidence of savant abilities, as well as other related phenomena, in autism. We contend that savant abilities such as hyperlexia, but also absolute pitch and synaesthesia, involve similar neurocognitive components, share the same structure and developmental course, and represent related ways by which the perceptual brain deals with objective structures under different conditions. Plausibly, these apparently different phenomena develop through a veridical mapping mechanism whereby perceptual information is coupled with homological data drawn from within or across isomorphic structures. The atypical neural connectivity characteristic of autism is consistent with a developmental predisposition to veridical mapping and the resulting high prevalence of savant abilities, absolute pitch, and synaesthesia in autism.

Also a very recently published hypothesis on the sort of "BIOS" level functioning of Savants: http://www.sciencedi...306987713004829

I also ran across an old case study on Daniel Tammet that I found particularly interesting, apparently his forward digit span is only 11.5: http://www.daysyn.co...henetal2007.pdf

[xks201]

What specific information here is helpful to us? All I could read was the summary.

[3AlarmLampscooter]

Oh shoot, here's the fulltext: http://ge.tt/4efQYvA1

Mostly the part I found interesting was the concept of Veridical mapping as it applies to drugs that increase neural plasticity - it would seem to imply that given proper training and the correct drugs (this being the somewhat hard part), anyone can acquire quasi-savant like abilities without necessarily having accompanying deficits.

That, and the fact that I can beat Daniel Tammet at forward digit span on Coluracetam+PRL-8-53

[chemicalambrosia]

That, and the fact that I can beat Daniel Tammet at forward digit span on Coluracetam+PRL-8-53

Are you still using both of them on a regular basis and achieving the same results? Also, did you think highly of Coluracetam for stand alone use?

[3AlarmLampscooter]

Yes on both fronts!

Now I just need some "Nunuvigil" and PRL-8-147

[middpanther88]

So, do scientists believe that SS is induced from a specific area of the brain? Or is it arbitrary?