Last night I saw a show on the Science Channel called Ingenious Minds. The episode included a story about a man named John Robison who is a savant. He has a gift or talent in understanding mechanics, however, has a difficult time with interpersonal communication. He is unable to read other peoples social cues and all the relationships in his life suffer as a result. The show mentioned a new therapy which has been found to be effective in increasing empathy as well. The treatment is a non invasive brain stimulation technique which actually causes the brain to think in a different way. The therapy stimulates neural pathways in the brain that were not functioning before. Additionally, according to the research facility (CNBS) web site, they are utilizing the treatment for people who suffer with Autism and Schizophrenia too.
I found this therapy extremely interesting and thought I would pass on the information. The Ingenious Minds episode is available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpEubnIfZUA. The facility currently performing research is called The Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation (CNBS) at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School located at http://tmslab.org/. Finally, more information on this topic can also be found on the Science Channel website http://science.discovery.com/tv/ingenious-minds/ .
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