NASA scientists are scanning the brain of a Utah man who was an inspiration for the 1988 hit movie "Rain Man" in hopes that the technology used to study the effects of space travel on the brain will help explain the mental capabilities and inconsistencies of Kim Peek.
He's called a "mega-savant" because he is a genius in about 15 different areas, from history and literature and geography to numbers, sports, music and dates. He is also severely limited in other ways. Ask him where the silverware is kept and he likely won't know. He doesn't do simple things. He can't dress himself. He may not be able to figure out the light switch, his father Fran says. But Kim Peek's mental abilities in certain categories seem to be getting even stronger with age. That's one reason scientists in California are so interested in running tests.
When he was born, doctors found a water blister on the right side of his skull, similar to hydrocephalus. Later tests showed his brain hemispheres are not separated, forming a single, large "data storage" area. It is likely that is why he has been able to memorize books his father numbers at well over 9,000. He has a photographic memory, too. But in other areas he has lagged.
His motor skills developed more slowly and less well than those of his peers. His motor control is poor, though it has improved somewhat with training. He has trouble filtering out distractions, so he sometimes hums or uses other focusing devices to tune those distractions out.
Early in his life, doctors said he had mental retardation and would never be able to do much.
They were wrong, both in the assessment of his condition and the prediction of his future.
In the past 16 years, Peek, now 53, has charmed and enthralled scientists and students, parents and politicians — 2.3 million in all in the course of public appearances that have taken him all over the country, often for days at a time.
It was just such a trip that brought him to the attention of NASA researchers at the Center for Bioinformatics Space Life Sciences at the NASA-AMES Research Center in central California.
Last week, researchers subjected Peek to a number of scanning techniques including computerized tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, the results of which will be melded to create a three-dimensional look at his brain structure. Researchers hope the tests will answer some of the questions about the human brain, from its origin to how it works.
Not only are Peek's brain and his abilities unique, noted Richard D. Boyle, director of the center, but the fact that he seems to be getting smarter in his specialty areas as he ages in unexpected, too.
Fran and Kim Peek don't understand everything the researchers hope to learn, only that it's "kind of like artificial intelligence," Fran said. "The goal is to measure what happens in Kim's brain when he expresses things and when he thinks about them."
This journey started when Peek spoke to a Rotary Club in Monterey Bay last weekend, Fran Peek said. A doctor from the Salinas Valley Medical Center suggested the NASA program do the scans.
One interest the researchers have is to look at a series of MRI images taken back in 1988 by Dr. Dan Christensen, Peek's neuropsychiatrist at the University of Utah, to see what has changed within his brain.
Fran Peek is convinced that a lot has changed for her son, both inside and out. He was a shy young man with few social skills when the movie propelled him to public notice. He's calmer and more at ease in crowds now. His sense of humor peeps out in startling ways. Not long ago, at a gathering in Washington, D.C., where Peek was to deliver the annual "disability training lecture" to government officials, he quipped to the well-dressed and often high-powered audience members that "Dad and I haven't seen so many ushers without flashlights in our whole life."
He no longer reads only nonfiction, Fran Peek said, but has dabbled with some fiction, such as books by Stephen King. Because Peek is so literal-minded, his father feared he wouldn't be able to separate fact and fiction. But he has managed to keep them separate, Fran Peek said. He wanted to read the popular fiction because that's what so many people are talking about. Reading about prehistoric times or the Crimean War, which no one's talking about, he does for the joy it gives him.
Peek is a popular speaker in detention centers and in assisted living centers. In one nursing home recently, he was invited by family members to visit a woman who, because of Alzheimer's disease, no longer talks. The woman's son told Peek where she was from and he started listing the roads and the boat harbor, the lake, the picnic spot, the businesses that line the street, memorized from old phone books of her era. She brightened up and even told a simple story herself.
When he's home in Utah, Peek spends afternoons at the Salt Lake City Public Library poring over and memorizing phone books and the Cole's address directory. Ask him any historical event, what day of the week Feb. 12, 1322, fell on or when March 17, 2242, will be, or the call letters of the TV station in Roanoke, and he can answer in a flash.
The study of his brain is likely to take quite a bit longer.
E-mail: lois@desnews.com