The Genius Leap of Daniel Lappin 

Research over the past 20 years has documented cases of individual’s who exhibit exceptional abilities and genius qualities after experiencing brain trauma, illness, stokes and other unfortunate situations.

Daniel Lappin falls into this category.

Experiencing a stroke at age 17, he experienced 100’s of stroke and seizure events over time, and struggled with a cascade of complex medical symptoms.  This componded assault to his brain was a difficult expereince, yet also opened a door to creativy and a genius leap.

Based upon the research of Dr. Darold Treffert, and others in the field of the Savant Syndrome,  the natural neuroplasticity of the brain can adapt to a traumatic brain injury, such as a stroke.  In some cases, when one region of the brain is damaged, another portion of the brain enhances its activity to compensate for the loss in the first region.

Two patterns can occur:

A) When the left brain hemisphere is damaged, the right brain hemisphere can compensate.

B) When upper brain regions are damaged, the lower brain regions can compensate.

This can cause two consequences:

A) When the regulation and control mechanism of the left brain are disrupted by the brain damage, the right brain opens and exceptional creativity can surge within the individual. As well, other aspects of right brain function can be enhanced, such as whole systems thinking.

B) When the upper brain regions are damaged, the lower brain regions compensate and the individual expresses an unusual sensory perception capacity below the level of typical consciousness.

Daniel’s 'genius leap' includes both practical capabilities and conceptual innovations.

His practical capabilities include:

1. A remarkable ability to recover form disabling strokes by innately developing a method of:
   1. Attention regulation that hypothetically engages a ‘systems biology attention’, versus the typical brain and endocrine based attention mechanisms.
   2. Rotational and vector force generation to effect and switch states in visceral constriction in stroke impacted brain regions, and constriction in visceral organs and endocrine glands.
2. Innately designing a method that hypothetical regulates stress mechanisms in the hippocampus – a high value target in child trauma resolution.
3. Constructing a therapeutic process around these skills and applying them to stress and illness, and trauma recovery.
4. Creating a repeatable, training curriculum for these skills.
5. Designing a next generation artistic style to represent the human body. This art style blends medical illustration with entertainment animation, special effects, cartoon animation, super hero art, and cartoon physics.  The art style serves as a messenger to teach the skills developed in Daniel’s stroke recovery.  There are multiple applications for this art style: business, healthcare, sports, education.

His conceptual innovations include:

1. Designing an anatomy and physiology model that integrates and modernizes historical models of anatomy and physiology. This possesses important applications in healthcare.
2. Identifying a conceptual gap in basic physical and biological science that pertains to human communication.
3. Drawing a systems map of historical, global evolution of anatomy and physiology principles that pertaining to his innate method of stroke recovery.
4. Identifying examples from art history that reveal factors to illness. These factors are not adequately identified in medical science.  This is a foundation for his proposal to use the arts and humanities, and entertainment as health and prevention tactics.

These innovations are the foundation for the training and media projects Daniel proposes.

References:

A) https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-02/when-brain-damage-unlocks-genius-within#page-2

B) Neurology Today, American Academy of Neurology

https://journals.lww.com/neurotodayonline/fulltext/2010/02040/Autistic_Savant_Made_Famous_by__Rain_Man__Dies__.8.aspx

C) https://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/professional/savant-syndrome/resources/articles/savant-syndrome-2013-myths-and-realities/

D) https://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/professional/savant-syndrome/resources/articles/savant-syndrome-2013-myths-and-realities/