Transcripts from

BEAUTIFUL MINDS – A
VOYAGE INTO THE BRAIN
DVD
DVD 1
Dr Darrold Treffet – Wisconsin Medial Society. Expert in Savants (one hundred
people who can deal with gargantuan feats with almost extraterrestrial ability).

He is looking at which part/s of the brain Savants use almost exclusively.

Professor Allan Synder – Centre for the Mind, University of Sydney

“There are 100,000 million neurons in a brain.”

In the early Nineteenth Century, the German doctor, Franz Joseph Gall, came up
with a bold theory: he was the first to ascribe particular characteristics and
intellectual abilities to exactly defined regions of the brain. However, Gall’s brain
maps were erroneous and nonsensical. Only the revolutionary technology of the last
few years has made it possible to measure the brain with millimetric precision and to
trace in extraordinary detail, the gifts of people like the Savants

An example is given of Rudiger Gamm, a mind trainer who can remember

phenomenally long numbers. He masters all two figure numbers to the power of 50;
eight figure trigonometric functions and Pye to 5000 decimal points. He advises
national league teams and top managers (POSITION 10.33)

Using MRI, scientists can measure (which parts and to what extent) of Gamm’s Brain
are in use when he is doing his extraordinary calculations.

Neuroscientists using MRI can measure when certain neurons are activated in
Gamm: the activated regions consume more oxygen and sugar so, more blood will
temporarily flow into them.

Dr Jay Giedd, National Institute of Health, Washington does the research using MRI.

(POSITION 11.4- - 12.40) Dr Darold Treffert of Wisconsin Medical Society says

we tend to think of ourselves as being born with a blank disc and beautiful piece of
machinery called the brain and we become whatever we put on the blank disc. But
in order to explain prodigies you have to explain how somebody can know
something they haven’t learned?

In 1959, Orlando Serrell (at age 10) was hit on the head by a baseball, up to that
point, he was an ordinary boy. He was severely unconscious. But on recovering,
Orlando knows the weather and day of the week every day after his accident
without thinking about it. His knowledge of dates before his accident is also
improving. He is called an ‘acquired savant’ because he was not born one.

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Dr Greg Wallace, National Institute of Health, Washington

The brain stem reacts to anxiety why it should be anxious only the cerebral cortex
knows.

The brain holds not just one form of memory, but many – built up over the years of
evolution.

That one’s heart is racing is due to one’s brain stem.

(POSITION 17.52) The cerebral cortex is the working memory of all thoughts and
is disproportionately large and contains inconceivable amount of neurons. It would
take 32 million years to count all the connections between them.

Panic is down to the old mammal brain called the ‘limbic system’ This is our
emotional memory against which even the cortex can’t compete.

Prof Gerhard Roth, Bremen University: -

“The cerebral cortex is the seat of our conscious memory and has ½ a million
contact points/synapses. We know that memory is encoded in synaptic connections.
Every one of the ½ a million synapse contacts can take on 10 active steps. In
principle, our memories have an infinite capacity”

Dr Darold Treffert – Wisconsin Medical Society:

(POSITION 19.30) - Everything we experience is recorded but we don’t

necessarily have access to this unless we tag it.

Kim Peek, age 50 – has read 12,000 books, he knows ALL historical data around the
world. He lives with his Dad, Fran Peek in Salt Lake City. He can’t dress himself or
cook.

(POSITION 21.00) He is able to read one page with one eye and another page in
another eye.

Dr Richard Villaalobos – Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital

Dr Trefffert – Kim’s memory is like no-one else.

No-one can remember what he can.

The cerebral cortex memorises everything we can put into words, but soon after,
we only have access to a fraction of it. Scientists still can’t clearly explain why this is.
Two triggers in the limbic systems: the hippocampus and the amygdale. These give
emotional colouring to our memories. So, we may forget someone’s birthday, but
not the colour red.

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(POSITION 24.48) What we see each day is really just the sum of our memories.
That’s why each of us sees a different world – even when we’re standing on the same
escalator.

(POSITION 25.00) Professor Allan Synder

In order to manoeuvre in this world, we have models in our head. When things
outside change, we don’t notice. Instead, we project out what we expect.

Savants see the world as it is: different every day, Kim Peek has no filter systems –
just an enormous hard drive.

NASA in California researched on Kim Peek using high tech, Kim Peek remembers
every thing perfectly, he has ever heard. His brain is like a search engine.

Savants have automatic memory and they have no idea how they have it.

Savants activate less of the brain than ordinary people and use an extra part of the
brain only when ordinary people would long since have given up.

(see Dr Thorsten Fehr – University of Magdeburg and Bremen)

(POSITION 37.00) Our brain always like to do things on a unconscious memory

level, because the things we do unconsciously are simple in metabolic terms – they
are fast, run smoothly and are unproblematic – though also inflexible.

(POSITION 37.49) Things that we can do easily are undemanding. Our

consciousness is first activated when new, important and complex things come up
that activate special networks – the conscious networks in our cerebral cortex

(POSITION 38.00) That’s when everything gets really expressive and complicated.

90% of our actions and reactions are controlled by our unconscious memory.
Neurobiologists think that savants use the same memory files (that we use to drive,
dodge traffic etc) for factual knowledge.

(POSITION 38.40) One theory says that the complex circuits between the
cerebral cortex and the limbic system beneath it – defective in many savants. Our
selective perception and factual memory – normally based on these circuits. Our
daily routines and possibly the savants mental dexterity – in contrast, controlled by
simpler circuits lie deeper in the brain. Neurologists call this the habit memory. This
is how the limbic system constantly deciphers the meaning of facial expression and
the cerebellum controls our daily movements.

(POSITION 42.00) Professor Brian Butterworth, Laboratory of Mathematics at

University College, London, expert. He can measure the oxygen dependence of light on

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the blood: brain activity faster and with less stress with an MRI scanner. He has
deduced after 100s of tests that although the memory’s capacity for numbers
depends on practise, it is mostly down to our genes. Proposes the numerical module
theory that suggests that there’s a set of neurons (brain cells) in the parietal lobes
that’s specialised for numbers. It has an ancestral version in birds, dogs, monkeys
and it’s for detecting the numerocity parameter in the environment – that is how
many things there are in a given set of things. If you haven’t got this, you’re going to
find it very difficult to learn anything about arithmetic. If you have got it, it will form
the basis of more advanced arithmetic skills. (POSITION 43.44)

(POSITION 44.05) In San Francisco researchers working for NASA are using
further tests to try and decipher the secrets of the infamous ‘Kimputer’s’’ hard-drive.

One initial theory suggests that Kim, like all Savants, has access to the raw material of
his memory. This means that the particular mechanisms of filters that people use to
collate and evaluate information and forget what is not relevant, doesn’t work with
Kim – or at least not in the usual way.

In Kim’s brain, liquid-filled ventricles are much larger than usual. They normally fill
the space between the limbic system and the cortex. With Kim, they extend as far
as the cerebellum – the human motor memory. The cerebellum, which normally
consists of 2 equally – sized halves, is asymmetrical in Kim’s case. The left half is
clearly smaller. This, as yet, explains only one thing: Kim’s occasionally clumsy
movements.

(POSITION 45.36) With a new technique called ‘fibre tracking researchers now
have evidence of connections between regions of the brain. In San Francisco, the
expert using this procedure makes an amazing discovery: Kim has no corpus
callossum – the large bundle of nerves at the lower end of the cortex. It normally
connects the two cerebral hemispheres. This is normally only seen in ‘split-brain’
patients: usually epileptics who have had the connection removed with astounding
results. So for example for a normal person who has his language centres in his left
brain, if you show an object eg an apple – to his right brain, he will be unable to say
what the object is because the speaking half of the brain is not aware of the object.

This explains Kim’s ability to read two pages of a book at the same time with one
eye on each page.

Kim has two separate hard drives on which to store his data. But does that explain
his continued access to all his memorised facts? Why doesn’t Kim’s brain have a
‘delete’ key and what exactly is it in us that decides who and what we consciously
remember? ((POSITION 47.12)

From the point of view of our billions of neurons, every memory is essentially just a
pattern of electro-chemical stimuli – no matter whether we’re strong, 12,000 books,
our first love or other talents.

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Dr Darrold Treffert – Wisconsin Medial Society

(POSITION 47.43) The Central nervous system in the human is continuously

replacing itself. So, the cells we have in our brain now are different to those we had
2-3 years ago. So there had to be a mechanism to store that electrical impulse in
some neuro-chemical way. So, it’s an interaction between the chemistry and the
electrical charge and it’s a complex interaction.

(POSITION 48.40) Creativity: is it possible that each one of us not only has
infinite memory lying dormant within but also other, completely different talents?

(POSITION 49.20) In the Sydney Laboratory, Dr Alan Snyder is trying to simulate

a knock on the head using magnetic impulses – not in order to improve our
memories, but to improve our ability to be creative.

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DVD 2
THE EINSTEIN FACTOR

In Sydney University, volunteers are having part of their brain switched off.
Volunteers are shown proverbs they know so well, that they are reading aloud the
proverb even though what’s on the screen is written incorrectly.

Prof. Synder is using impulses to paralyse regions in the left side of the volunteers
brain. If everything goes well the volunteers will recognise even the smallest of
errors and though now corrected perception, become more creative.

[Over half savants are autistic]

Stephen Wiltshire from London is a star among savants. He is nicknamed ‘The Living
Camera’. He is autistic. He lives in a world, of his own. Communication is difficult
for him. He didn’t speak his first words until he was five, yet when he was 11, he
drew a perfects aerial view of London after only one viewing. Even the number of
windows in all the major buildings was correct.

(POSITION 4.50) After only a 45 minute helicopter viewing of Rome, he was

asked to draw a 5½ yard panoramic picture of the city centre, without a second
glance. He had 3 days to do it.

Dr Darrold Treffert

(POSITION 6.48) “In medicine, everything we know we’ve learned from the study
of disease and so, everything we will learn about the brain will probably come from
the study of disorder of the brain.

(POSITION 8.15) “What’s the difference between a savant and a prodigy and
what’s the different between a prodigy and a non-prodigy?

Matt Savage – learned to play piano overnight at age 7 and six months later, he
learned how to play Schubert. He said the music was already ‘in him’ according to
his mother. When his piano teacher pointed out an error in his playing he insisted
his version sounded better. At that point, he decided to write his own music.

(POSITION 10.50) Dr Treffert

“Matt comes with an intrinsic knowledge of music that pre-dates anything he has
learned. Savants come – as do we – with software installed – that may be the
musical chip, the language chip, the mathematical chip”

(POSITION 12.00) Einstein had larger-than-usual parietal lobes and Lenin had
unusually numerous pyramid cells.

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(POSITION 12.40)
Researchers now ask “Does creative genius depend on a purity of perception?
Which ignores all stereotypes and convictions.

(POSITION 13.00) Prof Allan Snyder, Sydney University

Creativity is an act of rebellion – by definition: you have to be subversive to break
the rules and confront conventional wisdom. If everyone accepts what you are
doing, you are obviously not at the forefront – you are doing something that’s within
the paradigm”

Prof Snyder says savants see the world as it really is and not as we do – through the
mindsets of the filters of our experiences. In savants, this filter system doesn’t work,
and Prof Snyder believes that this brain defect in savants is the key to exceptional
creativity.

Using transcranial magnetic stimulation, Prof Snyder turns the filter system off in
volunteers. With TMS, he short-circuits sections of the cerebral cortex for 10-20
minutes. Since some savants only experience their talents after an injury to their left
temporal lobe Prof Snyder bombards this region with magnetic impulses eg. with
volunteer Alice (Position 14.36)

Prof Michael Fitzgerald, Trinity College, Dublin

“People with Aspergers Syndrome have incredible visualisation. They are incredibly
sensitive to colour. They can see colour and landscape much better than an ordinary
person”

(POSITION 18.20) Prof Stephen Wiltshire and Prof Lind Pring, Goldsmith College,
London

“Seeing the world is not a passive process: we aren’t cameras…what we think we

see is very , very different from the light falling on our senses.

(POSITION 18.39) We are all familiar with dizziness. When we stop after
spinning around, the world seems to move in the opposite direction – at least, this is
what our brain tells our consciousness.

(POSITION 19.02) Motor signals running along the spinal cord confirm what our
eyes tell our brain: that we are now standing still. But the fluid in the balance system
in our ears is still moving – that’s why our brain jumps to the conclusion that we are
still moving – but we don’t notice it because the world is rotating in the opposite
direction.

(POSITION 19.22) Our brain makes rapid selective short cuts. Each of us sees
something different. You see what your brain unconsciously filters from the stream
of incoming signals

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(POSITION 19.57) – The limbic system is the site of our feelings.

Cortex – where consciousness is located frontal lobe of the cortex: from here come
ideas, plans, complex languages.

The temporal lobes manage long-term memory and let us know who we are, the
parietal lobes (the back of the cortex) coordinate specific movement and our
perception of space.

(POSITION 20.40) The main temporal and parietal lobes manage what we see and
hear.

Prof Gerhard Roth, Bremen University

“What neuroscientist have discovered is that Creativity is mainly a function of the

neuronal networks in the frontal brain and that these networks strongly depend on a
stimulant called dopamine. The higher the level of the dopamine in the networks or
the pre-frontal cortex, the more creative people are.

This is easily explained by the fact that the networks at the front of the brain have
access to our long-term memory, which is actually located at the back of the brain.
This means that ideas, notions that were previously unrelated, are now brought
together in a state of exatation. Ideas are now being thought that were never
thought before”.

Prof Elkhonon Godlberg, New York University

(POSITION 21.48)
The left hemisphere is in charge of established knowledge and the right hemisphere is
in charge of truly novel situations. That means that basically all of human life consists
of cycles of learning characterised by encountering a new situation and then
mastering it. So, that means that as you encounter a new situation, the right
hemisphere kicks in first and then gradually there’s a transition to the left
hemisphere. (POSITION 22.20)

(POSITION 23.30) Matt Savage again: wonderful illustrations of his interpretations

on the piano of various roller-coaster scenarios.

(POSITION 26.15) Prof Michael Fitzgerald, Trinity College Dublin has a theory on
geniuses. He is an expert in autism. Prof Fitzgerald believes that a series of geniuses
starting with Einstein show clear signs of Aspeergers syndrome – a milder version of
autism.

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(POSITION 26.28) Newton, Mozart, Beethoven and Sigmund Freud, Van Gogh,
Michelangelo, Immanuel Kant are some of the geniuses he cites as having Aspergers
including Hitchcock and Andy Warhol. Prof Fitzgerald believes that the balance
between right and left hemispheres is distorted in all geniuses.

Extreme talent for logic and obsessions with systanatising were always accompanied
by poor social skills – a text book example of Aspergers Syndrome as described by
the Viennese Paediatrician Hand Aspergers in 1944.

(POSITION 27.10) Given their common rigidity and social ineptness, there’s
actually a very fluid line between the autist and the eccentric scientist.

(POSITION 27.35) The brain modules of geniuses are not wired up properly.
Prof Fitzgerald believes that it was a defect that turned Einstein into a genius.
Einstein said he was able to see life like a child. (Position 27.50)

(POSITION 31.13) Professor Allan Snyder has a life-long dream to develop a

method that temporarily turns us into savants to free our perception from all
prejudices. Allan Snyder believes that this is the pre-requisite to creativity and that
regions of the brain can be switched off in order to discover hidden capabilities in all
of us.

(POSITION 33.00) Dr Boris Kleber, Tubingen University

In the University of Tubingen they train opera singer, surgeons and athletes to get rid
of their stage fright or fear of performing by putting them in an MRI scanner which
identifies the areas of the brain activated by pictures that relate to the subjects
performing. Afterwards, the scanned images of the subjects brain are matched to
ocean and gently-flowing water sounds. The subject is again shown the pictures
when ever the fear centres show up, the subject is played gently-flowing water
sounds in order to help them relate the calm sounds to the pictures.

“The voice reacts almost immediately to emotional changes. This is why we work
with singers. We hope we’ll be able to recognize changes more quickly”

The amygdala is the area that is quietened in these singers due to the relaxing music
techniques used to provide neuro-feedback. So, the singers learn to ‘dim out’ the
amygdala using the neuro feedback – without exactly knowing how or why.

Autism dims out the amygdala, too and more than half of all savants are autistic.

(POSITION 35.43) “Musical savants don’t get uptight before a concert because
they’re not wondering if they are going to make a mistake or worried if they are
going to make a mistake. It also doesn’t make any difference to them if they are
playing in the Rose Garden for the President or in a Nursing Home”

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Alonzo Clemenz – Savant who sculpts animals from clay: - One of the most intriguing
talents of some savants is their ability to transform a picture almost immediately into
a 3-D image. Experts now believe that we all have a similar talent – but that they
have become overlaid by more complex abilities such as language.

(POSITION 40.11) There are two centres in the brain that spur on our creativity
with a chemical ‘pick-me-up : dopamine. The more dopamine they pour out, the
more bubbly and active we get. The less dopamine they secrete the more dull and
lacking in drive we are.

(POSITION 40.42) These two structures, therefore, use one single transmitter to
determine our creativity and our personality: the substantiate igra and the ventril
tegmental area. This latter area, according to Prof. Gerhard Roth, Bremen
University is also the area that registers rewards. It pours out dopamine every time
a reward is expected and creativity always shows up when a reward is expected –
whatever native it might be. That’s why we have a dopamine ‘search’ ie if I want a
Nobel Prize or earn lots of money, I will search for ways to make this happen.

(POSITION 45.22) At Salt Lake City University Music School , the savant –Kim
Peek, the inspiration for the film ‘Rain Man’ – is sitting at the piano for the second
time in his life accompanied by music professor – April Greenan – a Mozart expert.

Through a chance meeting with Kim, April discovered that he possesses musical
abilities that were completely unknown to his father Fran. Like Mozart, Kim has the
rare gift of perfect pitch: he can assign every single sound to its true note. Yet Kim
has never had a piano lesson. April says that in the first ten minutes of meeting Kim,
he had gone through her whole database of knowledge and more.

By the time Kim was four he knew all the indexes of a set of encyclopaedia. He has
read 12,000 books and know all the US highway routes. However, now over 50, he
still lives with his father who dresses him and brushes his teeth every day and
accompanies him everywhere everyday.

(POSITION 49.20) Greg Wallace, National Institute of Health, Washington

The human brain develops quite rapidly up until the age of 25. The brain circuits that
are not used during our teens are lost for good after that. Therefore everything
teenagers do or don’t do (eg. sport, music, game boy, drugs) has a profound impact
on their brain. Mood changes during puberty simply depend on the teenagers ever-
evolving brain. It has to establish, turn off or increase neuronal circuits. To put it
simply, in the head of every teenager, there is a neuron war raging.

Dr Jay Giedd, National Institute of Health, Washington

“The first stage in the development of the brain is over-production of brain cells.
There are way more brain cells and neuronal connections than can possibly survive:
there’s only so much room in the skull, there’s only so many nutrients and growth

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factors. After this ‘over-production’. The second process is ‘war’ or competitive
elimination. They fight it out for survival. Sometimes this is called ‘neural darwinism’

What we think might be happening with autism is that after this over-production
different connections are kept that may allow them abilities to tell you eg. what day
of the week your birthday fell on etc.. But the cost is that the connections used for
social and language abilities may have lost out” (POSITION 51.45)

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DVD 3

Dr Temple Grandin, based in Colorado USA: she is the most important woman in
the US Livestock Industry. She teaches Animal Science at Colorado State University
and has designed or re-designed two-thirds of all livestock handling facilities in the
Industry.

Dr Grandin has been showered with awards by both the Meat Industry and Animal
protection groups. (POSITION .43) She sees the world through the eyes of
animals. She senses their fears and thinks like them.

However, Temple Grandin has had to pay a high priced for this ability: she has had to
learn human language as if it were an alien tongue. The feeling of being in love is also
totally foreign to her. She is autistic.

(POSITION 2.46) 100,000 million neurons in the brain determine who we are and
what we do.

(POSITION 3.35) Six out of 7 autistic people are male. Are women better
human beings? Is the male brain in some way defective?

Seen statistically, women haven an ‘E’ brain, whereas men have an ‘S’ brain. ‘E’ stands
for empathy – the ability to sense what others feel. ‘S’ stands for system ie cars,
machines, computers or stamp collections. Autism, according to Professor Simon
Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University England, is male logic at its most extreme.

Professor Baron-Cohen: “People with Autism have difficulty with empathy, but at the
same time, they have a strong interest in systems – log-maths, music, drawing,
collecting. It’s an obsession. So, this profile is, in one sense, an exaggeration of the
male profile.” (POSITION 5.44)

Professor Elkhonon Goldberg, New York University: “Until relatively recently, the
human brain was regarded in rather androgynous terms and practically no attention
was paid to gender difference. For example, any text today on neuro-anatomy, will
talk on generic terms.”

Professor Gerhard Roth: “Women can express themselves much better: they are
verbally much more articulate. They definitely have more talent to be diplomatic, to
approach groups to find out what other people want.”

“Men have much more problems with empathy – not only less affinity, but severe
difficulties which is the first step towards Autism.”

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(POSITION 7.20) Dr Temple Grandin thinks like animals – in pictures, not in
words. But, human facial expression is still difficult for her: her brain is not wired to
read it.

Dr Grandin thinks in 3-D: she can test-run a design for a slaughter house like a
movie in her head – BEFORE it is built. Dr Grandin did not speak until she was 5
years of age. Einstein had no language until age 3.

(POSITION 12.06) Tommy McHugh of Liverpool was always in fights. His hands
and knuckles are testimony to the broken bones he has received when fighting. As a
mature man, he had a stroke and now he says, “The stroke has taken every bit of
aggression out of me.”

Professor Gerhard Roth, Bremen University: “In the past, men have done very well
in reproducing descendents, defending their territory and providing food. They
weren’t meant to be good at much else. Today, most of this is superfluous and, in
that respect, today, men may be ‘construction failures’ (POSITION 12.57) But, as
a man, you’re not supposed to say so!

(POSITION 14.00) Are women really the gentler sex? Do they show more
sympathy with potential victims? Or is it rather that, as a woman, their brains have
learned that physical violence doesn’t really pay. The Universities of Bremen and
Magdeburg are researching these areas.

Dr Thorsten Fehr, Universities of Bremen and Magdeburg: “If you look at the crime
statistics, you will come to the conclusion that blunt violence is clearly a male
domain. But, the question is – how do you define violence? Would you consider the
withdrawal of love from your partner as violence?”

Professor Gerhard Roth, Bremen University: “Men show their violence bluntly –
their aggression is expressed in physical violence. Women, on the other hand,
transform their aggression into violence in relationships eg being snappish, nagging,
criticising, making other people’s lives difficult – ie poisoning. So, it is subtle
violence.”

(POSITION 18.41) “At the time when our brains evolved, women were
dependent on men. When they had children, they could not go hunting for physical
reasons. That’s why they have a repertoire that dates from the Stone Age, which
they cannot possibly get rid of. That means that even if women would want to send
men to hell, they cannot change their hormones in their limbic system. The cortex
says ‘to hell with men’ and the limbic system says (like the song) ‘Ah, but men are
lovely all the same’.” (POSITION 19.16)

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(POSITION 20.00) The brains of the male and female ‘guides’ on the DVD were
scanned by MRI in Magdeburg and then computer-animated in New York.

The female brain is slightly smaller than the male brain: on average, women have 150
grams less in their head. This difference is considered irrelevant.

(POSITION 20.17) The rational ‘managing director’ in our head is the Cerebral
Cortex’ and that’s only a few millimetres thick – although folded endlessly.

(POSITION 20.29) In the middle of the brain, is the ‘Corpus Collossum’ – a large
nerve bundle that connects both hemispheres of the cerebral cortex. In most
women, the corpus collossum is larger than in a man. But, it’s controversial as to
whether this has any significance either.

Beneath the corpus collossum, is the ‘Limbic System’ – a relic from the Stone Age –
which we share with all mammals. It precipitates fear, as well as falling in love,
excessive appetite and feelings of desire. However, the ‘Hypothalamus’ covers
sexual arousal and readiness for violence – exclusively in men. “This particular
structure of the hypothalamus is very large in men – much larger than in women.
And, ONLY in men is it in charge of both sex and violence” according to Professor
Gerhard Roth of Bremen University. He says “These parts of the hypothalamus are
saturated with the male sex hormone, testosterone.”

(POSITION 21.35) Today, experts believe that the effective circuitry seen in
Autism is partly due to the disastrous effects of testosterone. For example, Dr
Temple Grandin did not speak a world until she was five years of age. She acquired
her own mother tongue systematically as one would learn a foreign language. She
can now lecture for 90 minutes without problems, but faces are still a riddle to her.
(POSITION 22.20) The culprit is probably a defect in the left hemisphere of her
cerebral cortex, triggered by testosterone.

(POSITION 22.33) Dr Darold Treffert: “The left hemisphere completes its

development later than the right hemisphere in the foetus. So, it is at risk for longer,
to anything that might be damaging to it. It turns out that testosterone is, in some
people, detrimental to neuronal tissue (POSITION 22.53). In a male foetus,
during the time he’s developing secondary sexual characteristics, levels of
testosterone can reach levels as high as those in an adult male.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Trinity College, Cambridge, England: “Levels of

testosterone are measured in the amniotic fluid in the womb (both males and
females produce testosterone, but males produce much more). The babies are
followed up after birth to see if the hormones predict anything about the child’s later
behaviour.”(POSITION 23.33)

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“What we’ve found is that children who have higher levels of testosterone pre-
natally, make less eye contact at one year old and are slower to develop language at
2 years old.”

(POSITION 23.48) Professor Neil Smith, University College, London, is a regular

visitor to language Savant, Christopher Taylor who lives in Yorkshire, England.
Christopher’s case has turned all current knowledge about Savants upside down.
Savants are rarely, if ever, gifted at languages. Furthermore, men are normally less
talented at languages than women. Yet, Christopher Taylor speaks and understands
over 20 languages including some exotic ones like Hindi and Hungarian. He cannot
dress himself or go into town alone, but he can read the world’s Press.

For Christopher, language is a system. The fact that it is also used to communicate
doesn’t bother him.

(POSITION 34.59) Catherine Mouet has Aspergers. She now lives with Giles
Trehin, from the Cotes d’Azur, who is autistic. They are an inseparable couple. She
(see POSITION 30.00) dropped out of her PhD because she couldn’t handle the
puns, ironies and facial expressions that came up in daily life at the University.

(POSITION 35.36) Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Trinity College, Cambridge,

England: “The kind of mind that a person with autism has, may be very well adapted
to the information age…because we now have to think in much more precise ways –
in digital ways. The autistic mind may be more suited to thinking in this precise
way.”

(POSITION 36.48) 100,000 million neurons process in-coming data and compare
it with our memories or delusions. Whether we like fish or blondes, our body is
only obeying neuro-chemical reactions in our head which label everything we
perceive with an emotional tag.

(POSITION 37) Each conscious feeling – but also every background mood – is
caused in our brain by chemical compounds. When we fall in love, our brain pulls
out phenyl ethylamine – a molecule producing a natural high. Its ecstatic effect
disappears very quickly.

Enduring love, on the other hand, is based on oxytocin – a pair-bonding hormone

which helps our mind to overcome romantic set-backs and helps us raise nerve-
rackingly screaming babies!!

Professor Gerhard Roth, Bremen University: “Falling in love is a stress reaction

coupled with a strong rush of endorphins, including Cortisol. These endorphins
produce the feeling of being in love and it lasts for 6-8 months then it’s over. The
only goal is to Mate. (POSITION 37.33) But, love, on the other hand, is meant to
make sure that we take care of the progeny, that the males don’t run away.
(POSITION 37.49)

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(POSITION 38) Professor Allan Snyder, University of Sydney: “The decisions we
make are not driven by any conscious thoughts: it’s the unconscious mind that
dictates to you what to do and what your preferences are. THAT’S the thing to
understand. Consciousness is almost like an afterthought.”

“Consciousness is just a kind of a PR exercise in the brain – letting you think you are
involved.” (POSITION 38.50)

Project run by Dr Tania Singer, University College, London: a test subject in a

scanner watches a ‘nice’ lady and an unpleasant lady (both of whom are actresses but
the test subject doesn’t know it) experience painful electric shocks. Dr Singer’s
project is to determine whether the test subject has more empathy for the ‘nice’ lady
or ‘unpleasant’ lady.
(POSITION 39.58) The results show that women commiserated even with the
unpleasant lady. Men, on the other hand, did empathise to the same level, but only
with the nice lady. Seeing the unpleasant person suffer, their brain assumed
indifference or even glee (POSITION 40.08)

(POSITION 44.38) It was only 4 years ago (2002) when Catherine Mouet (who
has a degree in Mathematics) was 31, that she found out that she is autistic and that
her brain sees the world through different eyes. Being autistic, she takes everything
at face value. She lives with Giles Trehin in Cagnes-sur-Mer, Cotes d’Azur.

(POSITION 45.44) Does our brain determine who we are, our memories, our
bliss?

(POSITION 46.19) Dr Gerhard Roth: “Most of our intelligence is invested in our

social intelligence – in guessing what other people want from us and how they expect
us to behave. If all this doesn’t work, resources are set free for Mathematics or eg
space orientation.

When women are asked to calculate while being scanned b y an MRI machine, their
brain is seen to use more, but different regions to men. They also use a different
area directly above the cerebellum (POSITION 47.22)

(POSITION 47.42) Yet, when men and women do equally well in Arithmetic, they
do equally well in the same time – only their paths are different.

(POSITION 48.20) Giles and Catherine cannot work because they are autistic.
So, they live on disability benefit. However, there has been an increase in jobs where
autists have an advantage – like computer programming. Hence, autists meet in the
workplace and this might explain why more autistic children are born, since there is
a hereditary factor.

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(POSITION 50.00) In Berlin, at the Frauhoffen Institute and the Charity Hospital,
scientists have developed a type of man-machine. The brain waves of the test
subjects are scanned on the surface of the skull by a normal EEG. The extraordinary
result is that the test subjects can move the cursor of a normal computer by will-
power alone.

Actually, the computer-brain-interface recognizes and filters the brain’s electrical will
impulses for simple hand movements and transmits them to the cursor enabling the
test subject to write entire words just with their thoughts.

(POSITION 50.40) The electric impulse to move the hand is already present a few
milliseconds BEFORE the conscious decision to move the hand. Who, then, triggers
the impulse? If it’s not our consciousness, what is it?

(POSITION 51.10) This ‘man-machine’ (ie the brain-computer-interface) could

prove invaluable to paraplegics and could be the first step towards mind reading. In
order to do so, the impulse would have to be read at a deeper level of the brain – at
its source.
“The computer does not read my thoughts, but recognizes the pre-definite steering
signals that I give. Therefore, when I’m thinking of how it feels to move my left hand,
then the cursor moves to the left. When I imagine that my foot is moving, then the
cursor moves to the right.” Test Subject in Berlin

(POSITION 51.49: CLOSE)

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