Mental Abilities: Genius, Savant and Autism. :)

1. Explain in detail what "savant syndrome" means.
    When a person who is autistic or is a mental handicap has a great ability or is brilliant in one area but has a difficulty doing any other everyday tasks.

2. What does genius mean?  Explain the difference between genius and savant.
 Genious is a person that has incredible intellectual abilitiy. The difference between a genius and a savant is that savants are only amazing in one area while geniuses are amazing at everything.

3. What is a stroke and how could it affect your mental functioning?
    a stroke is a sudden death of many cells in an area of the brain caused by bad blood flow. It could hurt a part of the brain that controls speach and you may not be able to speak again, it all depends on the area of the brain where the stroke happens but it would make a part of your brain stop functioning.
4. What is a functional MRI and how does it help us understand brain activity?
    Magnetic Resonance Imaging, it is a kind of xray that allows us to see the soft tissues inside of the body.  With the MRI machine we can see the brain working and see what parts of the brain works when we do certain activities.

5. What is the corpus callosum and what role does it play in your brain's activity?
 It is a bunch of nerves in the middle of the brain that connect the left half with the right half, it controls the communication between the two.

6. What is epilepsy and how might it affect your brain's abilities?
Epilepsy is a disease in which a person has seizures that begin in the brain. In some cases of epilepsy the corpus callosum could be affected, if this were to happen the left and right parts of the brain could not work together.
7. What is autism?
Autism is a disease in which a person is socially awkward, has unusual mental abilities, and has odd speech patterns. Autistic people see the world in a different way than non-autistic people do.

8. What is Asperger's Syndrome?
disorder that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests.