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Kim Peek, aka Rain Man Focus of NASA Study
Bob Vila's Hammer writes "Kim Peek - an autistic man who has been deemed a "mega-savant" for his astonishing knowledge of 15 grand subjects ranging from history and literature, geography and numbers, to sports, music and dates - is a part of a new NASA study to explore the changes in his brain since MRI images were originally taken in 1988. Not only was he the basis of the main character in the movie Rain Man, but he apparently is getting smarter in his specialty areas as he gets older. The study has scientists hoping that technology used to study the effects of space travel on the brain will help explain his mental capabilities."
"The goal is to measure what happens in Kim's brain when he expresses things and when he thinks about them."
Personally I'd be curious to look at the difference in his brain activity when he is dealing with one of his specialities as opposed to when he is trying to find a spoon.
vampirical
Be your own savant for a little while... with magnets. Really! Maybe.
As an interesting side note, both Ken Jenning and Kim Peek are Mormon. In fact, Mormon doctrine is one of the subjects that Kim has mastered in mind-dumbing detail.
According to the following link, Kim Peek is not autistic, he's just a savant:
i mp eek.cfm
http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant/k
Along the way to its completion, the original script for the movie Rain Man underwent a number of modifications. While Kim Peek served as the initial inspiration for the story, Raymond Babbitt, as portrayed so admirably by Dustin Hoffman, is a composite savant with abilities drawn from a number of different real life individuals. The main character in that movie, Raymond Babbitt, was modified to be an autistic savant. The story thus is that of a person who is autistic but also has savant skills grafted on to that basic autistic disorder. It is important to remember, therefore, that not all autistic persons are savants, and not all savants are autistic. In preparation for his role, Dustin Hoffman spent time with several other autistic savants and their families, as well as with Kim.
Fran Peek describes his son this way: "Kim is not behaviorally autistic. He has a warm, loving personality. He truly cares for people and enjoys sharing his unique skills and knowledge capacity.
It is important to distringuish that Kim Peek does not demonstrate the disassociation portrayed in the Rain Man movie.
In fact, Kim Peek (along with his dad, Fran) spends a lot of time doing "charity work" with elderly people.
Supposedly, he's quite a nice guy to talk to, if a bit mentally retarded (or whatever the proper term is these days).
More knowledgable certainly, but entirely possible to be smarter as well. With his amazing accumulation of knowledge, if he is able to reason and answer questions as quickly as he used to, then one must assume he is also getting smarter because indexing and sorting much more data in the same amount of time would represent a large increase in performance.
Man, I had a hard time typing like that, I detest discussing someone as if they were a machine, but I could think of no better way to make my point.
This is not a sig.
It may be valuable, though, to have a better understanding of how the brain processes such specialized information, especially for those who are autistic. Treatments (where they exist) tend to be haphazard experiments on the patient, with very little information on why some treatments work in some cases, others work in others, and no treatments work at all in yet others.
Nor is it clear that everything in the "autistic spectrum" is biologically (rather than symptomatically) related. If they are unrelated, it would go a long way to explaining why the effects of medication are so unpredictable.
As far as I can tell, very little of the mechanics of autism has been researched. The cause is uncertain, though likely to have a genetic component. What that component is, and how significant it is, seems to be completely unknown. There may be environmental factors (MMR vaccines have been looked at with suspicion, for example), but that too is so uncertain as to be mere whistling in the dark.
The NASA research is unlikely to answer any of these questions, but may provide some clues as to how to get answers in future, and hopefully will inspire researchers to actually do the basic research needed.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Smarter or more knowlegeable?
Depends how you define "smart". If you equate it with "intelligence" as studied by psychometricians, then it is common to distinguish two forms.
If he maintains his fascination in those areas, why would we imagine that he wouldn't gain knowlege?
"Crystallized" intelligence is roughly speaking the amount of knowledge you have. You're right, this should increase with age, or more generally with experience.
Smarter would mean something like ``better able to reason with a given set of information.''
"Fluid" intelligence is roughly speaking the flexibility of thinking, and is measured by having people solve novel problems that don't depend (much) on prior knowledge, culture background, etc. The canonical example is Ravens Progressive Matrices test.
It's fluid intelligence that you're thinking of, and that I think of too, when the word "intelligence" or "smarts" is used. Fluid intelligence is correlated with things like working memory capacity: how much information you can store and process at the same time -- roughly your "cognitive throughput".
In general, crystallized intelligence increases (or can increase) with age/experience. However, fluid intelligence (and related constructs such as working memory capacity) actually declines in the elderly.
The two forms of intelligence are likely subserved by different cortical networks in the brain -- and this is probably relevant given that the article mentions the use of MRI -- but this is the subject of another post!
Interesting that he can describe driving directions and specific geography but can't apply the same skills to locating the silverware - they seem like very similar tasks.
That is often said, but it just isn't true anymore. The massively deficient and elevated levels of metals in the bodies of autistics is well documented. An autistic has an array of known biochemistry and physiological symptoms. About 99% of cases of autism appear to be caused by heavy metal poisoning insulting the development or function of the brain (there is a perfect overlap between the symptoms of heavy metal poisoning and autism -- because they are the same thing). Some parents are now managing to fully de-autistify their children by chelating mercury and lead. There can be other causes, but they're rare.
Oh, the MMR vaccine does not cause autism. It might've had a minor negative effect in some individuals that were already going to become autistic though. Apart from some very rare reactions, it seems very doubtful that vaccines cause autism. Although it does seem to me that the heavy metal and other chemical preservatives used in many vaccines may have encouraged the development of autism in vulnerable individuals.
The most interesting part of the session was the question and answer portion at the end. For about 30 - 45 minutes Kim fielded various "trivia" questions from the audience. They ranged from obscure baseball facts from 50 years ago, to a student standing up, stating his name and hometown and asking for his address and phone number. No-one succeeded in stumping Peek.
Peek's visit was certainly one of two most interesting speakers to visit my college while I was there. (the other would be Desmond Tutu)
Why don't they put in in a room with ALL the available data on HIS condition (autism), let him make autism his latest subject to be a "mega-savant" about; then ASK HIM ABOUT HIS OWN CONDITION ?
Failing that, check autism.about.com for links to sites detailing therapies involving heavy metal detox. Autism Today also has some stuff on the subject.
I see nothing from the "major" medical and psychiatric sites, though. Most of the stuff seems to be from "alternative" medical sites. Now, that doesn't make it incorrect - medical sites are notoriously slow at picking up new ideas. (The recommended practices for preventing the spread of SARS were largely the recommended practices from Florence Nightingale's medical text!)
On the flip-side, it does mean that it's not necessarily clinically proven. For example, Oregon has some severely contaminated rivers, especially mercury contamination, but it's not known as a hot-spot for autism the way California is.
I'd like to see some peer-reviewed research on this. (Particularly if there's anything that could mean I can quit the damn meds for Aspergers. That stuff's not cheap!) But I'm not risking what's left of my brain on unproven guesswork.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)