Any neuro guys have any idea how Stephen manages to store and recall an entire city after a 20 minute helicopter trip ?

http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/biography.aspx

He must have some kind of either

A. unusual encoding ability on left and right hippocampus for both landmark and general spatial features. Maybe the visual cortex data can be shunted into the hippocampus faster or larger chunks at a time within the 20 minutes to build up the representation there ?

B. unusual sustaining of sensory information in short term sensory cortex. i.e. If visual activity patterns are held longer they may be able to accumulate more depth. There is some new papers which show autism spectrum have higher densities of cortical columns.

Or A and B together.

Any ideas ?

Wiltshire's autism includes an impairment in language development. Eidetic memory is significantly more common in children, who rely more on imagery in memory than adults who tend to move towards verbal categorisation. Vygotsky suggested that eidetic memory was an elementary function of the brain that developed into higher mental functions, and this might well be associated with later language development. An autist's delayed or absent language development might therefore mean that eidetic abilities persist. If we add-in the tendancy for autists to spend a lot of time doing what they are good at, the tendancy towards singular attention (think the opposite of ADD) and an over development of categorisation skills, enhanced discrimination & being able to process exact data, Wiltshire's ability might be less surprising (though still quite extraordinary). As for the specific cognitive architecture that allows this, I really couldn't say.

what you are saying it that sensory growth is rerouted elsewhere when not focused on social growth ?

This still leaves the question why is social face processing reduced i.e.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&cl ... =&gs_rfai=

and language delayed ?

From what i understand the brain development disconnection patterns in autism are random in each individual. i have heard that the face processing reduced facility is genetic, but was not clear if this was just one aspect of generalized genetic alterations.

i.e. The genetics of autism point out to a dysregulation of the normal balance between inhibitory and excitatory connections in the cortex, so maybe this causes a general disruption that can go for language or face processing. As cortical development has a degree of randomness. i.e. Even twins have different cortical folds (gyri and sulci).

Or the genetics are altering the cortical function to amplify sensory inputs (hence the sensory sensitivity and denser columns in sensory cortice) and this causes the social disruption. The sounds and syntax for language will be louder than they were evolved for, fail to operate as they should. Of course this should mean that that some autistics should have increased or sharper language abilities in some kind of abstract manner, but maybe the alterations in excitatory/inhibitory connections affect the left hemisphere more than the right.

 
Related: Check out Temple Grandin's TED Talk. She talks about her autism, how she thinks in pictures and not in language.

http://www.ted.com/talks/temple_grandin_the_world_needs_all_kinds_of_minds.html