Dr. Treffert was gracious enough to have a wide-ranging conversation with me. Over the course of a few days, we had a delightful time chatting about autism, savantism, genius, nature, nurture, intelligence, creativity, lessons learned, recent advances, and the future. This was one of the most satisfying and elucidating conversations I have ever had. I learned many things and it is my pleasure to share our in depth conversation with all of you. In my view, this interview demonstrates quite clearly the need for more compassion and research on all different kinds of minds and ways of achieving greatness.

In this eighth and final part, we discussed lessons he has learned from a lifetime of studying savants, recent advances, and looking to the future.

SCOTT: You wrote in your book, "My voyage with savants has changed drastically. My more pessimistic view of central nervous system renew and regeneration that I, along with many of my colleagues, mistakenly harbored based on our earlier training." What has your incredible voyage taught you about the plasticity of the human brain?

DAROLD: Well, I think I've had my own epiphany about the issue of the central nervous system and its capacity to renew itself. When I went to medical school, we learned that if a liver cell or a heart cell died, they could be regenerated, but if the neuron went, that that was the end of it. It's sort of as if we started out with a whole suitcase full of neurons when we were born and gradually they dissipated in one way or another until finally with dementia there are few left, and it completely ignores the fact that the central nervous system is continually renewing itself.

That shouldn't come as any surprise, but it almost does in the field because the cells that I'm using as I'm talking with you today are not the same brain cells that I was using three months ago when we first corresponded. Those cells have changed, just like my skin cells, or my liver cells, and so the brain is continually renewing itself. I think we haven't thought of that as a renewal process. We sort of thought of it as a loss or a deteriorating process.

So with that comes all sorts of implications for repair, post-stroke. Now we're talking about using techniques with paralyzed people to be able to renew the spinal cells, we hope, with stem cells. So I think we've had an awakening of the renewal capacity of the brain and the plasticity.

If I were to sum up what is the neuropathology, neurophysiology, or neuroanatomy of savant syndrome, I put it into the three R's. There first is damage and some rewiring into that area of the brain which is still intact and recruited and then coupled with the release of dormant capacity. So, rewiring, recruitment, and release and all of that, and that speaks to brain plasticity in volumes because that is a renewal and recruitment process.

So I have almost a different idea. In fact, I may be wrong about this, but I think that for Alzheimer's disease, and for that matter Parkinson's disease, we've tended to have the idea that what's happening is that neurons are dying, and they probably are and being replaced by plaques and spindles, but I wonder whether Alzheimer's disease is not there because neurons are dying, but it is rather because the brain has ceased replacing them. And if that's the case, that would be a whole different pharmacologic intervention.

In other words, if the process is not one of deterioration and death, but rather the real culprit is the failure of the brain to renew one's cells, that's a whole different kind of therapeutic situation. I'm not expert enough, but this whole brain plasticity and renewal thing has jarred my thinking even to go to that kind of degree to say, well, maybe some of the diseases that we consider to be degenerative may not be so much a degenerative process as rather a failure of regeneration. That's a whole different phenomenon.

SCOTT: I've never heard that perspective before.

DAROLD: Well, I don't think it's generally around, but I wonder the same thing about Parkinson's disease. It may not be those cells that have stopped producing the dopamine that's necessary. It may not be just that they have died because those cells have been dying all along. It's rather that the brain has stopped replacing them, and if that's the case, I think it would be a different intervention. Anyway, the plasticity issue has got me thinking even to that degree.

SCOTT: How have your experiences led you to realize the importance of love and compassion as part of the therapy process?

DAROLD: Well, that's just by watching firsthand the interaction with the savants and their parents. I've been so impressed by their ability to be patient, to be hopeful, to look at what's there instead of what's missing, and the therapeutic effect that that has. Now, that ought not to come as any surprise, because I think we see that in our own children, with love and with the reinforcement, what that does just with our children, and our spouses, and so forth and so on.

But I think when you see it in the capacity that some of these parents have to accept the problems that these people present, or the 24/7/365 effort, or the infinitely slow progress that sometimes is seen, it's just been as impressive to me to see that in relief against each other as it is to see some abilities and disabilities in the same person. So, it's simply reinforced something I already knew, but it's seeing it amplified.

SCOTT: You've had all of these experiences. I wish everyone had all of these experiences so everyone could have the same sort of view in the world as you do. Do you know what I mean?

DAROLD: Yeah, I've tried to convey that somewhat in the book, and tried to generate that sort of thing, or at least to share it, but I think people who have been around some of these savants and their families have come away with that same inspiration, really, and it's a reinforcement of what we already know, but it's really powerful when you're part of it.

SCOTT: You've mentioned Allan Snyder's work. I really like his work a lot. Do you think his idea of a "thinking cap" that allows people to tap into their inner savant will be possible some day?

DAROLD: It may well be. I think that we already know that it's not called the thinking cap, but for people who are paralyzed by what's called the man machine, the person actually wears a helmet and is actually able to move a computer cursor merely by thinking about it.

Because just before I move my finger, for example, my index finger on the left hand, there is a pre discharge, and if one can capture that, as already has been done, then by harnessing that pre discharge, you can actually have the person move a cursor on a computer by thinking about it. The helmet is different than what Allan is talking about, because here we're talking about a paralyzed person being able to control his or her limbs, and there are applications of that already out there.