The Human Brain

Savants

Considered by many to be a disability, savant syndrome endows some people with amazing gifts

A deluge of rain and fire related erosion in the nearby Spring Mountains overwhelmed Las Vegas’s flood control reservoirs in the northwest and turned Grand Teton Drive into a river.: Image Credit: Ken Lund from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

‘It never rains in Las Vegas’

You might remember that line from a film. I certainly do as it’s a favourite of mine. That line has even been sampled in music. I listen to the track every couple of weeks but right at this moment I can’t for the life of me recall it and it’s buried somewhere in one of my playlists.

In fact it does rain in Las Vegas — on about 26 days every years — but that’s beside the point.

The film was ‘Rain Man’ and a savant was the inspiration for Dustin Hoffman’s character. It won four Oscars and a host of other awards worldwide, but also opened many people’s eyes to mental illness and a rare human condition which has astounded people for millennia.

Rain Man (1988) - IMDb

The brain is a fascinating organ and when it doesn’t work ‘normally’ (i.e. as in most people) then a whole range of unusual behaviours can arise. There’s an interesting book ‘From the Edge of the…