Erceg’s condition is so incredibly rare that it took numerous scientific studies and brain scans to diagnose her with what is called “savant syndrome.”
Savant Syndrome is described as vastly enhanced cognitive ability in an area such as art and math. Acquired savant syndrome is when a person isn’t born with the condition, which is the case with Erceg. She also suffers from “synesthesia,” a mixing of senses, where the person can see a sound, or hear a color as a series of numbers and letters.
“Leigh is the only woman in the world who has acquired savant syndrome and synesthesia following brain injury that I know of,” said Dr. Berit Brogaard, a neuroscientist at the University of Miami who has been studying her.
Read it all from ABC’s Nightline (or even better watch the video) {emphasis mine].
The neurologist Oliver Sacks who died last week in his books charted many extraordinary outcomes of brain trauma or organic brain illness.
I remember a clergyman, who shall remain nameless, who after a stroke, for several weeks spoke fluent Italian but no English. The English gradually came back. He had been a POW in Italy in WW2.