How Rain Man's brain REALLY worked: New scans reveal the makeup of patients with similar condition

New research using brain scans sheds light on the way that the Rain Man's remarkable brain worked.

Scientists at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley combined hospital MRIs with a mathematical tool called network analysis to make 3D maps of the brains of seven adults who have the same condition.

These 'structural connectome' maps, described in the upcoming April 15 issue of the journal Neuroimage, reveal new details about the condition known as agenesis of the corpus callosum.

This is where genetic malformations leave patients without a corpus callosum, the neurological structure that connects the left and right sides of the brain.

That condition is one of the top genetic causes of autism and was part of the mysterious brain physiology of Laurence Kim Peek, the remarkable savant portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the 1987 movie Rain Man.

Mr Peek, from Utah, who died in 2009 aged 58, was known as a 'megasavant' for his exceptional memory, but he also experienced significant social difficulties.


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