Ingenious Minds

In 1988, a successful chiropractor and family man suffers a sudden and nearly fatal brain hemorrhage. After recovering from his brush with death, Jon Sarkin was overcome with the urge to create art. This born-again artist's work has been featured in a number of major publications and news outlets worldwide.

Born with severe brain damage and completely blind, medical professionals believed Rex Lewis-Clack would never be able to walk, speak or anything else associated with a normal human life. Little did they know that Rex would become a true musical savant even before his eighth birthday.

Derek Amato is one of the world's only acquired savants after a brain injury left him with the amazing ability to play piano, an instrument he had never played before. But now the music never stops.

John Robison is an accomplished mechanical engineer and a savant with Asperger's Syndrome. Cutting-edge Harvard research is hoping to help John overcome the social difficulties Asperger's presents by increasing his ability to empathize.

Robert Gagno is a young man with autism and a peculiar talent: he is one of the top-ranked pinball players in the world. He journeys to the Mayo Clinic to meet with a neurologist to examine how his brain is hard-wired for pinball wizardry.

Alonzo Clemons can't read, write or drive a car, but he can see an animal, even for a split-second, and create an incredibly accurate sculpture in mere minutes. Alonzo meets with neurologists at the Mayo Clinic to see how brain damage can actually improve brain function for just one skill.

In 2010, Temple Grandin was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine. She has changed how the 70 billion dollar beef industry treats animals, and she's changing the way people think about autism.