Hidden Brain - Episode 21: Stroke of Genius

Episode Date: February 23, 2016

Derek Amato wasn't born a musical savant. He became one—almost instantly—after hitting his head on the bottom of a swimming pool.

This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vidantantham. Unpredictable things happen to us all the time. Your car breaks down. The babysitter cancels. You get sick. Those little moments shift the direction of your day or your week. And then there are the bigger things in life. The earthquake kind of change that shakes everything around you,

that breaks down your sense of who you are and what your life is. And in the process of getting back on your feet, you might realize that something's different. Maybe you come out of it with a new perspective, a sense of direction you never imagine. Today on the show, we have two stories of that kind of change and the transformation it brings. Oh, and we have some pretty beautiful music that comes with those stories. Derek Amato is sitting at the piano in NPR Studio 1. As you're listening to him play, you might think he's had years of musical training.

But Derek is unusual. He's said to have something called a quiet Savan syndrome that left him with the incredible ability to play the piano. We'll talk about what that means, but let's back up a minute. I grew up a typical kid. I was an extremely aggressive athlete.

So that was kind of my thing. I was a baseball football basketball player. You were a jock. I was a jock, yeah. I had musical interest from very early on. My grandmother was a organ player for the church. So I mean, I was around it. I remember Sunday mornings going, sitting next to her on the bench, and even though I didn't understand what she was doing or how to play the instrument, I loved to sit with her and sing. It was just

my comfort zone as a child when I go to church. I get to sit and watch her play the organ and sing. At his mother's insistence, Derek dabbled in music. He joined the school band, played drums, tinkered around with a guitar, formed a rock band with friends, but he did not take formal lessons or get any musical training. OK, so that's the setup.

What happens to Derek in 2006 is both terrifying and fascinating. What happens to Derek in 2006 is both terrifying and fascinating. He was in South Dakota visiting friends and family. I got together with some friends and we were going to have a little barbecue party at the pool and indoor pool. And we were horsing around and this young man walked in. He must have been about 14, 12, 14. And he had this little miniature football with him. So of course, we started throwing the football at each other, and I thought I could just run on the side of the pool and then dive over the water and catch the football in the

air. And the idea was you would catch it and then fall into the pool. Yeah, just catch it in the air and then fall into the water. So I went running on the side of the pool. And I remember, I remember running alongside the pool. I remember even diving in to catch the ball. And I knew I was diving towards a shallow end. I was very aware and I miscalculated the depth obviously

and I hit the upper left side of my face. And that's all I remember. It was like an explosion. And you know, most of us had a head trauma when we were a kid or hit our head. And it's that sickening feeling you get when it's like, oh no, I know something. I just did something extremely wrong.

And this isn't right. And I knew I had hurt myself. Diagnosis was a massive concussion. And what was the treatment? Relax, stay quiet, lay in bed for a few days. I spent the night at the hospital the next morning they sent me home. I went home and I slept. I slept for five days basically. And then you get up and do what? We sit at the table and I said, well, I feel pretty darn good. I know I had an accident and I'm not sure what happened. And I said, well, I'm in a pack

and I think I can go back to Denver in a couple days. So I called Rick and I said, why don't you come over and get me, we'll say goodbyes and I'll be on my way in a couple of days. And so we went over to the apartment and we were just hanging out. And he had this tiny keyboard, just this little piece of junk in the corner and it was just on the stand, dusty and not sure if it had ever been played. And I kept staring at it as we were talking and we were just sitting talking like just like this.

And I kept looking at it and looking at it, curious. It was like not sure why I was drawn to it and I finally just walked over to it and I thought I'll just hit a few of these keys. I turn it on and see what happened. I had no clue and I sat down and my fingers just went crazy. My fingers were like somebody just... I don't know, Rick said the ghost of Beethoven jumped into my body. I don't know how else to explain it. I went crazy and just played and played. And it wasn't like I was just picking away. What did you play?

I played... I think it was more of a classical structure to it. And I sat there and did this for, I don't know, five, six hours without stopping. And we just, I remember looking at him and there was tears rolling out his face. I mean, he's a Christian coward, he's a pretty emotional guy. He's a sweet, sweet man. And he just, you know, he didn't know what to think as, because I mean, I'm known him since we were kids.

And he'd never seen me play a piano, so he's like, what's going on? I'm not sure what's going on. I didn't want to stop playing because I was like, well, what if I stop and then and then this doesn't happen tomorrow morning I mean this is kind of cool. I don't I mean, it doesn't happen every day You just sit out and start playing a piano. So I think this is kind of different. Let's let's just stay here for a while It must have been two o'clock in the morning and I was exhausted. My brain was flying still is racing and So he took me back to my mother's house. We had a call the day.

I was, you know, beat up and I went to bed and the next morning I woke up and I was paranoid. I was nervous. I was scared. I was like, how am I going to tell my mother? The person that knows me best on this planet. I just hit my head and I'm a little whacked out. How am I going to tell her that I just discovered that I know how to play

the piano fairly well to a person that's known me my entire life, 40 years. So I said, well, I don't know any other way than to take her to a music store. So I said, we had a cup of coffee and I said, it's front of the music store real quick. And she said, what do you want to buy? And I said, nothing. I said, I just want to show you something real fast. I went teller.

We get to the music store. We walk in, the salesman says, I don't know, like, you know, he can help you, he wants to sell me something. And I said, if you show me how to get this piano, this digital piano on, that's all I need. And then give me just 10 minutes. So he turns it on, shows me how to turn the darn thing on. I tell my mother to sit down next to me.

What did you play? I don't quite remember what I played that time, but I was doing more of a... I wanted to sing to her for some reason because it was such an emotional thing. And I was going into like... And I just started to kind of chord this and she was looking at me like, whoa, when did this transpire? I mean, she had all kinds of questions right away. And then I just kind of went nuts and started going crazy just to show her, look at this,

look at this. And she started crying, she really did say much. It was a very quiet drive home. As you're telling me this, Derek, I almost have the feeling that you are pulling my leg right now because it seems this is not possible. This is just simply not, it could not have happened. You know, well, if I would have had my way, I'm not sure if I would have ended up a piano player.

I kind of wanted to be a baseball player and I were working the fighting business. So I don't know. And you know what, I invite skepticism because I think when something so beautiful and profound happens, we have to, we have to question. At what stage did you stop questioning that you had a scale? I'm assuming that you were skeptical as well. I mean, you told me that when you went home the first night, you were afraid that it was

going to be a one-day scale and it was going to be gone by the next morning. At what point did you stop questioning it and say, this is actually a new skill that I have? You know, I think you kind of grow into that, getting comfortable with accepting what's transpired in your life. I definitely didn't want it to go away. In the first year or two, it was a little, you know, like, I would wake up thinking, I need to get to a piano. I need to make sure it's still here.

And as time went on, I started to understand that, well, the doctors tell me it can go away as fast as it came. And acquired musical savants syndrome. That means you've acquired a gift. And I got to that point where I just accepted the fact that I'm going to enjoy every second of this. Because if I wake up tomorrow and it's gone, I want to be able to say that I did the best I could

to display it to a society looking in at my life and say, I've been inspired by this, or the human potential is amazing, or the brain is just a magnificent organ that we don't know anything about. And I think it became that comfort knowing that, I'm gonna enjoy it every single second.

And if it stays beautiful, if it goes away then I guess I'll go get a job. Have you spoken to neurologist who is skeptical about what's happening to you? I think they're all skeptical the moment they walk in the door. I mean, I feel skeptical. I'm sorry, I know that you're a nice guy. You seem like a trustworthy person. Right, right, I expect you to be.

But I have the feeling that you're just, this is just one big giant prank. Well, that's because I'm still, I'm articulate and I still have most of my marbles. So I can display the story in a different way than let's say the guy that hit his head and woke up a piano player, but he's not all here. If I asked you to play Twinkle, Twinkleinkle Little Star for me, could you try that?

I don't think I can play it. I tried to do happy birthday for a person the other day and I couldn't figure it out. No. Answers no. It's taught with C. Is that this one right here? Oh. Wait. Oh wait Where was that first note then?

Wait Where is the... So it's all up and down. Gosh, darn it. I can see it now. I mean, that's kind of there. Thanks for the first note, though. But it's sort of an interesting thing, isn't it?, which is like you don't go up, you don't see someone who says, you know, I can throw a fastball at, I don't know, 140 miles an

hour, but I don't know how to reach out and shake your hand. And to me, your displaying musical ability at one end of the spectrum, whereas playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I can do that. And you find it hard, and I find it just really difficult to understand how you can be so good at the extreme end without knowing the basics.

I'm right there with you. I'm on your side. I'm fascinated with that too. Does it disturb you? Does it worry you that you have this ability? No, I mean I'm a Christian kid, so I think I think this is what God wants me. I think this has already been penned out my story. I How else I mean I have to live with this every day, so if I sit and beat my own mind up about,

is this nature versus nurture and nature and all this nonsense? But I mean, I've talked to the best doctors, the smart doctors, and the planet. And they all got a different little input. Now, I've got something different to say about it. Most all of them are skeptic when I walk in and most all of them when I walk out are right here with me. Have any of them suggested treatments? Yes, yes.

The Dr. Reeves at the Mayo Clinic when I was filming with the Discovery Channel, he was fascinated with this as well. And he said, the best way to fair him to explain is like a roller coaster. If you get on a roller coaster that doesn't stop, sooner or later it's going to get tiring. So maybe we suggest slowing down the stimulant,

the overstimulated brain, you're firing these neurons at a pace that's unheard of. So let's try some. Seize your medication to shut those down, right? I don't know understand how it works, but I do know it slows down the firing of the neurons. Why would I want to take synthetic drugs and mask something possibly that I'm enjoying to the point where I don't want it to slow down and go away.

I'll take the hyperness and the ADHD and OCD and all that garbage that comes with this maybe. What if it has a consequence where you are burning your brain at a level that is not healthy for you? I mean, so for example, let's say... you are burning your brain at a level that is not healthy for you. I mean, so for example, let's... Then I guess I go down on fire, baby. And that's how the story ends, and I'm good with that.

You're still the guy who would die for the swoop football of the swimming pool. Yeah. Of course, Derek Amato isn't the only person with a quads of Ancindro. Others have experienced the profound changes that come with this condition. They are so motivated, they are in love with what they're doing. It's almost like an extension of who they are. Also, I'm going to challenge Derek to play the studio wall. I see on this wall, I see these squares. Some of them have different depths, so the full squares almost feel like a whole note to me. Keep listening, it'll make more sense soon.

I'm Shankar Vedantam and you're listening to Hidden Brain from NPR. This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedantam. This week on the show, we're looking at the specific moments people lose something big and how that change can point them in new directions. Before the break, Derrick Amato told us a story of how he became a musician after a head injury. Before the accident, he couldn't play the piano, but after, his musical talent was just undeniable. If this is the first time you're hearing our show, I have a confession to make. I'm a card-carrying rationalist. When surprising things happen, I don't call them miracles. I look for explanations.

Derrick's very charming, his story's amazing, but I found myself asking over and over how something like this could happen. That's when I came by a couple of researchers who've spent years studying people who've suddenly acquired savant-like gifts. Darrell Treffert is a psychiatrist in Wisconsin. He studied Derek. And I must say that in his case, I'm, you know, was a sturdle as you about the fact that he went to the piano and knew where to place his fingers and so forth.

The reason that I'm inclined to accept that is because I've seen that in some of these other cases, although probably not quite as abrupt as he, but, and to me at least, that having seen a lot of sub-hands when I see some of these acquired sub-hand cases, it is really quite jarring. I don't know if you remember what Derek said about his injury. He leaped across the swimming pool for the football, and when he came down hard, he heard what sounded like an explosion. And I miscalculated the depth, obviously, and I hit the upper left side of my face. The left side of his face.

That's an important clue. In general, in Savon Syndrome itself, whether congenital or acquired, there tends to be a more left brain injury with right brain compensation and the right brain areas or ability that seem to emerge have to do with art music and mathematics, actually. Art, music, and math, all skills that involve pattern recognition. At the University of Pennsylvania, cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman said, think about it. These are the skills you might imagine are built into the architecture of the brain. In other words, we might come hardwired for certain kinds of activities.

This is the insight that helped me see that Derek might not be pulling a prank. Most of us, in fact, effortlessly learn things. Just like Derek says, he never took classes to learn piano, you probably didn't take formal lessons to learn your first language. The truth is that a lot of things we learn in life were not done deliberately. When we were very young and the teachers of 2 and 4 we learned a huge amount of new words and learned the grammatical structure of our language automatically without we didn't like sit down when we were two years old and say, right, I'm going to learn all the

grammatical syntax and what it all means and so we have these structures that help us learn. If you look at it this way most people have skills that might seem so not like to a visitor from another planet we learn these skills effortlessly in fact it doesn't even feel like learning it feels like fun. What makes savants unique in other words is not that their brains do amazing things. All brains do amazing things. What's different is that they're demonstrating effortless learning in domains that usually call for sustained effort. Now, I'm not going to tell you you should go out and bang your head against the floor of a swimming pool to learn to play the

piano. The vast majority of concussions don't produce an ingenious, they have terrible outcomes. But Derek's story does suggest, even to this card-carrying rationalist, that we have worlds within us, gifts, that we do not realize that we possess. When I look at these savants, what I see at the core that I think is, offers a lot of inspiration to humanity, is that they are so motivated. They are in love with what they're doing.

It's almost like an extension of who they are. To me, that offers a lot of hope or inspires me that perhaps all of us can find that vehicle that really allows us to sing. As Derek was playing the piano in NPR studio one, I noticed there was a wall behind him. It had soundproofing, hollow wooden cubes, each of a different depth. Derek had told me that when he plays,

he sees squares floating by him. So I asked him to turn around, look at the wall, and tell me what he saw. I see on this wall, I see these squares. Some of them have different depths. So the full squares almost feel like a whole note to me. I ask Derek to play the wall for me.

I see low notes because all the depth. You see the dark ones that are filled in all the way? They stand out, so I see low notes like... Now I'm in the middle boxes. See where I'm at now in those middle boxes, so those are... And that's a whole different... Now we're getting into a whole different thing. Now I'm getting excited. You got any more walls with the look at me.

So you were just playing the wall? That's what you were playing with. I was playing what I wanted. I was playing what I wanted. So I started here. Okay, so imagine that's the music bar. So I played the top one. I'll do it again. I'll do it precisely exactly like I started here. Okay, so imagine that's the music bar. Yeah. So I played the top one. I'll do it again.

I'll do it precisely exactly like I saw it. Music And then it changes to this bar. We've moved down down now and now we're going to move down to the next bar of music and I see. And we'll go back up to the top. And then we can make it jazz. And that's, and I mean, it just goes on and on and on and on. And these walls could be dangerous because I wouldn't want to sleep at all.

If I had walls like this in my house. Are you telling me that you have never played the piece of music you just played for me in your life before? No. And this third row might even be a whole different composition. That's what I'm saying. The depths of those blocks, those middle rows and those circles in the middle, that's what these are to me. That's what...

Those are rolling are to me. That's what... Those are rolling patterns to me. And then those chunky ones on the top, that's where I see that... And it just changes like that, suddenly. And then I moved out of the next one, and it's a whole different flow. That's Derek Amato, playing the wall in NPR Studio One. This episode of Hidden Brain was produced by Cara McGurk-Allison with help from NILT VULT.

Our staff includes Maggie Penman, Jenny Schmitt, Chris Bander-Ev and Renee Clar. Our new supervising producer is Tara Boyle. Find more hidden brain on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and listen for my stories on your local public radio station. If you like this episode, give us a review. It helps. I'm Shankar Vedantam and this is NPR. you