WHAT DO WE MEAN WHEN WE USE THE TERM "INTELLIGENCE"...? THE MORE WE KNOW ABOUT THE BRAIN -- AND ITS INFINITELY COMPLEX FUNCTIONS -- THE MORE THE TERM "INTELLIGENCE" SEEMS IMPRECISE. THERE ARE MULTIPLE "INTELLIGENCES."

SIMILARLY, BRAIN SCIENTISTS HAVE COME TO VIEW THE LABEL "MENTALLY RETARDED" AS INEXACT. CONSIDER A RARE CONDITION CALLED WILLIAMS SYNDROME -- WHERE INDIVIDUALS WITH LOW IQ'S SHOW AN UNUSUAL AFFINITY FOR SOUND AND MUSIC. THIS CONDITION DEMONSTRATES HOW THE PEAKS AND VALLEYS OF OUR ABILITIES CAN EXTEND BEYOND OUR EXISTING MEANS OF MEASUREMENT...

MARY BETH KIRCHNER HAS THIS REPORT.

REVELATIONS IN SCIENCE OFTEN COME IN UNPREDICTABLE WAYS -- AT UNEXPECTED MOMENTS... FOR DR. URSULA BELLUGI, A COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENTIST AT THE SALK INSTITUTE IN LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA ONE SUCH TURNING POINT CAME IN A LATE-NIGHT PHONE CALL ALMOST FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. IT WOULD DRAMATICALLY CHANGE THE COURSE OF HER WORK...

Bellugi: "I was working in my lab late one evening when somebody called me, a woman called me and I answered the phone, and she said Noam Chomsky told me to call you -- so I didn't hang up the phone. And it turned out, she said my daughter is retarded and may have something interesting for you because she has good language."

BELLUGI FOLLOWED UP ON THE REFERRAL FROM CHOMSKY, THE NOTED LINGUIST AND MET THE GIRL. SHE LATER NAMED HER "CRYSTAL" BECAUSE SHE WAS SORT OF A "CRYSTAL BALL" THROUGH WHICH TO STUDY A FASCINATING CONDITION CALLED WILLIAMS SYNDROME. IT'S ONLY BEEN ABOUT FORTY YEARS SINCE WILLIAMS WAS FIRST DESCRIBED. THE PROFILE IS AN UNUSUAL ONE -- WHERE CHILDREN HAVE REMARKABLY FLUENT LANGUAGE -- BUT HAVE GREAT DIFFICULTY WITH SPATIAL TASKS LIKE DRAWING AND BLOCK DESIGN -- STRIKING ABILITIES IN RECOGNZING FACES -- BUT DIFFICULTY WITH PROBLEM SOLVING. THE AVERAGE IQ IS ABOUT 50. ONE OF THE UNEXPECTED CHARACTERISTICS OF WILLIAMS, WHICH BELLUGI FOUND EARLY ON WITH CRYSTAL -- WAS A SENSITIVITY TO SOUND AND MUSIC.

Bellugi: "I think one of the things that surprised me is that the mother told me she made up songs by herself. And in fact the songs were quite beautiful and haunting. I played them for some of my musician friends -- but then I put that notion away because I didn't know what to do with it. And it wasn't until we met Gloria Lenhoff and several other children that we began to see that individual Williams may have special abilities like Gloria certainly does."

(Music In - Puccini..)

GLORIA LENHOFF HAS TRULY SPECIAL ABILITIES. SHE HAS A REPERTOIRE OF AT LEAST 1,000 SONGS (PROBABLY 2,000 OR MORE BUT HER PARENTS STOPPED COUNTING SEVERAL YEARS AGO) -- IN TWENTY FIVE LANGUAGES.

(Music - up)

AT THE SAME TIME, SHE HAS DIFFICULTY SIGNING HER NAME...SHE CAN'T ADD FOUR PLUS FIVE... GLORIA CAN'T READ MUSIC; BUT WITH CAREFUL LISTENING TO MOST ANY RECORDING, SHE CAN GRASP THE SOUNDS OF A FOREIGN LANGUAGE OR A NEW MELODY -- WITH WHAT SEEMS TO BE A LIMITLESS CAPACITY FOR NEW MATERIAL.

Gloria: "I've heard so many operatic sopranos sing that song, I said oh boy, I hope some day I can learn that one, and now I can sing it."

Lenhoff: "...So we came up with the term mentally asymmetric. There are asymmetries in brain structure - so there are asymmetries in their cognitive functions."

HOWARD LENHOFF IS GLORIA'S FATHER.

Lenhoff: "Whenever I talk with groups of parents, I always start out with they're 'mentally retarded', I use quotation marks as symbols. However, I end up educating them that it's not really true because look at how good they are at certain things."

(More Gloria music)

"MENTALLY ASYMMETRIC" IS HOW HOWARD LENHOFF AND OTHERS HAVE COME TO DESCRIBE THE PEAKS AND VALLEYS OF WILLIAMS SYNDROME.

(More Gloria...music)

IT'S ONLY BEEN IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS THAT RESEARCHERS HAVE COME TO UNDERSTAND THE BASIS FOR THIS CONDITION THROUGH MAPPING DONE BY MOLECULAR GENETICISTS. THEY BELIEVE THE CONDITION RESULTS FROM THE ABSCENCE OF ONE VERY SMALL SET OF GENES ON CHROMOSOME 7 WHICH GIVES RISE TO WHAT LOOKS LIKE A DIFFERENT BRAIN ORGANIZATION. THE CHROMOSOMAL DELETION IN WILLIAMS SYNDROME BASICALLY PRESERVES THE LEFT HEMISPHERE OF THE BRAIN AND DISTORTS THE RIGHT.

Lenhoff: "Williams people -- all the parents had guilt until we finally learned that this micro-deletion that occurs is a spontaneous thing that occurs long before gestation. So it was nothing that any parent did wrong during gestation. Just that discovery alone made all the parents feel much better. Now all we can do is follow nature and do what we dobest."

IMAGING TECHNIQUES LIKE MRI NOW SHOW WHICH PARTS OF THE BRAIN ARE PRESERVED IN WILLIAMS -- THE FRONTAL LOBE, TEMPORAL LOBE AND THE CEREBELLUM - WHICH ARE CONSIDERED THE "SCAFFOLDING" FOR LANGUAGE. MUSIC, WHICH IS ALSO LOCATED IN THE TEMPORAL LOBE AND IN AN ADJACENT REGION CALLED THE PLANUM TEMPORALE -- ARE ENLARGED IN THE FEW BRAINS OF WILLIAMS EXAMINED SO FAR. ALTHOUGH RESEARCHERS LIKE DR. BELLUGI CAUTION THAT THERE HAS BEEN LITTLE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF MUSICAL ABILITIES IN WILLIAMS -- THAT THE EVIDENCE IS STILL MOSTLY ANECDOTAL -- HOWARD LENHOFF HAS BEEN CONVINCED OF THIS UNUSUAL SKILL AMONG WILLIAMS FOR YEARS...

Gloria: "This is also work for daddy.... these are heavy things. 35 pounds."

HERE HE SETS UP HIS DAUGHTER'S ACCORDION, WHICH SHE HAS PLAYED SINCE THE AGE OF TWELVE.

MBK: "So you're a team?"

Lenhoff: (laughs) "I want to resign from this job right now but I need it."

GLORIA IS NOW 43 YEARS OLD. LENHOFF IS RETIRED AND A PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT IRVINE. HE SPENDS MUCH OF HIS TIME TOURING WITH HIS DAUGHTER AS SHE PERFORMS AROUND THE COUNTRY.

Lenhoff: "We were carrying -- between changing planes, a heavy accordion for one of her performances and we saw one of these little trams and we asked if the man would take us and he said sure hop on. And we got there, I thanked him Gloria said gracias. He said, I'm not spanish - I'm Bosnian. So Gloria started singing a song he knew and he started to cry and started singing with her. Gloria, can you play it?"

(Performs - Bosnian song)

LENHOFF IS CERTAIN THAT HIS DAUGHTER IS NOT ALONE IN HER MUSICAL PROWESS. FIVE YEARS AGO, HE CO-FOUNDED A MUSIC CAMP IN THE BERKESHIRES NEAR TANGLEWOOD WHERE SOME FORTY INDIVIDUALS WITH WILLIAMS SYNDROME HAVE GONE TO PERFORM AND STUDY FOR ONE WEEK EACH SUMMER. DR. BELLUGI AND A FEW COLLEAGUES ATTENDED THE CAMP -- FINDING THE STUDENTS CONSUMED WITH MUSIC...SINGING IN GROUPS EVEN AS THEY WALKED BETWEEN CLASSES. MANY PLAYED BY EAR AND IMPROVISED. ONE WAS A PROLIFIC SONGWRITER. MULTIPLE CAMPERS HAD PERFECT PITCH.

(Gloria - music returns)

WILLIAMS SYNDROME REPRESENTS A WHOLE NEW FRONTIER OF BRAIN STUDY... WHILE THE STUDIES OF RESEARCHERS EVOLVE -- GLORIA LENHOFF AND OTHERS CONTINUE TO SIMPLY ASTOUND AND EDUCATE AUDIENCES WITH THEIR MUSIC.

(Music up)

AMONG HER FAVORITES -- ALWAYS -- IS PUCCINI'S..."O MIO BABINO CARO..."

MBK: "What does the title mean?"

Gloria: "Oh my beloved father..."

AND, PARENTS, TOO, LIKE HOWARD LENHOFF PERSIST AS CATALYSTS FOR ATTRACTING SCIENTISTS TO THIS FIELD.

Lenhoff: "By studying this one population, something has affected their brains where they love music and they have abilities in music to see how their brain functions and processes music to see if they can understand how ours does. One of the rules in experimental biology which I grew up in academically -- is that if you want to study normal - you study an atypical system. If you want to study music, study those who don't do other things well -- but excel in music. That's the challenge that we're putting forth to the scientists."

I'M MARY BETH KIRCHNER.

(Music up and out)

A CHILD WITH WILLIAM'S SYNDROME ONCE SAID, "MUSIC IS MY FAVORITE WAY OF THINKING..."

AS WE'VE HEARD IN THIS PAST HOUR, MUSIC HAS BECOME A FAVORITE WAY OF THINKING FOR AN EXPANDING GROUP OF NEUROSCIENTISTS.

THEY'RE TRYING TO LOOK INSIDE THE BRAIN TO SEE HOW IT LISTENS TO, INTERPRETS, AND DIGESTS MUSIC. THEIR SEARCH IS JUST BEGINNING. BUT EVENTUALLY THEY HOPE TO FIGURE OUT EXACTLY HOW OUR GRAY MATTER CLINGS TO A MELODY OR SONG, AND WHY IT IS THAT HUMAN BEINGS BREATHE IN MUSIC, AS SURELY AND AS HARMONICALLY AS THEY BREATHE IN AIR.

I'M MANDY PATINKIN.

(Music - Chopin)

Announcer: For a cassette or a transcript of this program, "Gray Matters: Music and the Brain," or a free pamphlet called "Unlocking the Mysteries of the Brain," call 1-800-65-BRAIN. That's 1-800-65-BRAIN.

This program was produced in association with the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, an independent activist organization created by the Charles A. Dana Foundation in 1993 to champion the public stake in brain research. Its mission is to advance education about the personal and public benefits of brain research. Today, the Alliance brings together more than 170 neuroscientists, including six Nobel laureates.

This program was produced by Mary Beth Kirchner and Robert Rand with engineering support from Leszek Wojcik and production assistance from Emily Botein. Our project manager was Kathy Moore. Special thanks to Phil Shuman, Professor Donald Hodges, and Dr. Guy McKhann.

(PRI Audio Logo)

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Last modified: April 15, 2007