Author Topic: The Incredible Brain Power! (Read 1687 times)

Apna Punjab · « **on:** July 24, 2014, 11:10:52 PM »

Ok friends! Lets share a link of real movie or documentaries etc. of the people with incredible powers!

Kim Peek


The Real Rain Man - Documentary

"Kim Peek is arguably the world's most famous savant and the inspiration behind the
Oscar-winning film, Rain Man.

Described as "a living Google", Kim is a confounding mix of disability and brilliance that
has baffled neurosurgeons.

Most savants have only one dominating interest, but Kim seems to soak up everything:
from sport to politics and even the minutiae of the British monarchy.

Peek was born in Salt Lake City, Utah with macrocephaly, damage to the cerebellum, and
agenesis of the corpus callosum, a condition in which the bundle of nerves that connects
the two hemispheres of the brain is missing; in Peek's case, secondary connectors such
as the anterior commissure were also missing.

There is speculation that his neurons made unusual connections due to the absence
of a corpus callosum, which resulted in an increased memory capacity.

According to Peek's father, Fran Peek, Kim was able to memorize things
from the age of 16--20 months.

He read books, memorized them, and then placed them upside down on the shelf to
show that he had finished reading them, a practice he maintained.

He could speed through a book in about an hour and remember almost everything he
had read, memorizing vast amounts of information in subjects ranging from history
and literature, geography and numbers to sports, music and dates.

He could read two pages at once, one with each eye. According to an article in The Times
newspaper, he could accurately recall the contents of at least 12,000 books. Peek lived
in Murray, Utah and spent a considerable amount of his time reading at the
Salt Lake City Library and demonstrating his capabilities at schools, with great help from his father.

Peek did not walk until the age of four and then in a sidelong manner.
He could not button
up his shirt and had difficulty with other ordinary motor skills, presumably due to his
damaged cerebellum, which normally coordinates motor activities. In psychological
testing, Peek scored below average (87) on general IQ tests.

In 1984, screenwriter Barry Morrow met Peek in Arlington, Texas; the result of the meeting
was the 1988 movie Rain Man. The character of Raymond Babbitt, although inspired by
Peek, was portrayed as having autism. Dustin Hoffman, who played Babbitt, met Peek and
other savants to get an understanding of their nature and to play the role accurately and methodically.

The movie caused a number of requests for appearances, which increased Peek's self-confidence.
Barry Morrow gave Kim his Oscar statuette to carry with him and show at these appearances; it
has since been referred to as the "Most Loved Oscar Statue" as it has been held by more people
than any other. Kim also enjoyed approaching strangers and showing them his talent for
calendar calculations by telling them on which day of the week they were born and what news
items were on the front page of major newspapers. Peek also appeared on television.

He traveled with his father, who took care of him and performed many motor tasks that Peek
found difficult.In 2004, scientists at the Center for Bioinformatics Space Life Sciences at the
NASA Ames Research Center examined Peek with a series of tests including computed
tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. The intent was to create a three-dimensional
view of his brain structure and to compare the images to MRI scans done in 1988.

These were the first tentative approaches in using non-invasive technology to further
investigate Kim's savant abilities.A 2008 study concluded that Peek probably had FG syndrome,
a rare genetic syndrome linked to the X chromosome which causes physical anomalies such
as hypotonia (low muscle tone) and macrocephaly (abnormally large head).Kim Peek died
of a heart attack on December 19, 2009 at age 58."

Author Topic: The Incredible Brain Power! (Read 1687 times)

Apna Punjab

The Incredible Brain Power!

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