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Divergent Minds
Learning Stats
CEFR Level
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Subtitles (628 segments)
[ambient music playing]
[Michael] Derek, have you ever watched Mind Field
on YouTube?
No, but I would like to watch it, Michael.
[Michael] Okay.
So Mind Field has a theme song
that I'd love for you to listen to
to see if you can play it for me on the piano.
I would like to listen to it, Michael.
All right. Just load this up here.
[theme music playing]
[playing piano]
Oh, hello.
This is a tray of brains.
Cow brains.
Here is a sagittal slice I prepared earlier.
Now, imagine that this is my brain.
Just looking at it, it would be impossible to know
what part does what
or that different parts did different things at all.
But if you change specific parts of your brain,
you can often affect specific functions.
So if this was my brain...
that would be pretty bad.
I would almost certainly
have just become cortically bind.
Of course, scientists can't go cutting and poking
and stabbing people's brains
to see how it affects their behavior,
but they can study the behavior and abilities of people
whose brains are different from neurotypical brains.
For instance, in rare cases,
people whose eyes function normally
but who are blind due to damage to their visual cortex
may experience the neurological phenomenon
of blindsight
which allows them to sense and respond
to objects they cannot see.
Due to a brain injury, this patient
is consciously blind on his right side.
But while he sees nothing in his right field of vision,
he's able to sense the presence and motion
of an object he cannot see.
[man] You're moving it up and down.
I am aware of a motion,
but that motion has no shape,
no color, no depth, no form, no contrast.
[Michael] Blindsight is possible
because besides the visual cortex
which is associated with conscious vision,
there are other brain areas
that get information from the eyes unconsciously.
We have learned about this unconscious vision we all have
because of blindsight.
The study of divergent minds
has revolutionized our understanding of the brain
in ways that would not have been possible otherwise.
People who differ from the norm
expose elements of all our minds
that we didn't even know were there.
[ambient music playing]
[upbeat music playing]
[Michael] One very special divergent mind
is that of Derek Paravicini.
Let's go. We're gonna count a hundred
-to find the hotel, okay? -Okay. Yeah.
[both] One,
two,
three...
[Michael] Derek is both blind and autistic.
He's also a musical savant...
Now for the live music you were promised.
[Michael] ...meaning despite severe cognitive
and social impairments,
his musical ability is far greater
than what would be considered normal.
And tonight, he's performing at the release party
for his latest album.
[playing "Flight of the Bumblebees"]
Derek possesses an incredible gift.
He's performed all over the world
and has become a symbol of success
for other autistic individuals.
Later, we'll take a deeper look into Derek's unique mind.
Thank you.
[upbeat music playing]
[Michael] One hundred and fifty years ago,
scientists still didn't know
if different parts of the brain did different things.
It was only by studying people with atypical minds
that we discovered that there are different modules
in the brain that have different functions.
The first major discovery
showing that the brain had these specialized modules
was made by a doctor named Paul Broca in the 1800s.
Broca had heard of a patient who had no problem
understanding language,
but who struggled to produce language.
The only thing the patient could say
was the sound "tan,"
over and over.
He would say tan,
tan, tan, tan, tan, tan, tan, tan, tan, tan, tan, tan.
When the patient died,
Broca performed an autopsy on him
and found that the patient's brain
had damage to a specific part
of its left hemisphere.
Broca concluded that this brain region,
now called Broca's Area,
must be important for producing speech
but not for understanding speech.
This language deficit called Broca's Aphasia
still affects hundreds of thousands of people
who get strokes in the left side of their brain.
A patient with Broca's Aphasia can talk,
but struggles to get the words out.
[woman] So what's your name?
Scott.
Oh, no.
-Sarah Scott. -[woman] That's right.
And how old are you?
I can't.
-[woman] Try. -I can't.
[Michael] Another part of the brain related to speech
is Wernicke's Area
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