Noble laureate seeks brain's secrets

By Ati Nurbaiti

JAKARTA (JP): A young man from mainland China who failed an entrance examination at a prestigious British university turned out to be a grand master in chess.

What happened? The test failed to take several factors into consideration.

"A language which uses pitch uses a different part of the brain," says neurologist and 1976 Noble prize laureate, Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, of the United States.

Similarly, applying standard intelligence tests to the deaf will make them seem like they are mentally inferior. However, the fact the deaf communicate through sign language shows they can master anything there is to know.

Irianese

Gajdusek cited yet another example of how testing, which is often specialized, fails to grasp the full extent of a person's capabilities. He said an Irianese, whose entire family was illiterate and who was illiterate himself, now teaches mathematics at a university. Gajdusek, 71, refused to identify the man, saying he will not betray his friend, who has asked that his name and whereabouts be kept confidential.

Through a lifetime of research and practice as a pediatrician and neurologist, to mention a few of his fields of expertise, Gajdusek has traveled with colleagues and lived in a number of societies to observe how a child learns, what causes defects and how to overcome them.

By researching cultures and subcultures, such as that of the deaf in a hearing society, Gajdusek has discovered the rich diversity of how people learn, of how they use their brains.

Much depends on culture and upbringing, he said.

His experience brings Gajdusek to believe that scientists must look out for cultural differences. "Methods in measuring intelligence are biased, picked for a given purpose," he said.

Just try using the standard tests to pick an expert gamelan player, or Balinese dancer, Gajdusek suggested. Or imagine the results if someone had given Albert Einstein a music test. "He was a rotten musician, tone deaf," but classic music helped inspire the renowned scientist.

For his dedication, Gajdusek received the Noble prize, which, he said, was nothing that he had hoped for.

"You don't make good science hoping for some prize," said the man with at least 15 awards to his name, besides a long list of honorary memberships.

And when a researcher does receive recognition, it would be an insult, he said, if it were from some unknowing masses instead of a bunch of people who know what you are doing.

Luck

Pure fun and play, he says, and luck, is what a good scientist builds his work on, besides thinking, talking and even gossiping instead of being burdened with administrative work.

And don't expect your trainees to take much of your advice, or even be interested in your assignments, if you really hope they will turn out to be creative, original thinkers. "Look how children play ... it's us who take away the creativity from them," he said.

But those who benefit from his work will surely not only procure fun. From Sumatra to Irian Jaya and from New York to Guam, Gajdusek and his team, who study child growth and development and disease patterns, have identified the causes of signs of aging among the young.

"We found it is a chronic calcium deficiency," he said.

"It kills people of 20 to 70 years old," he said during a visit here. He was sharing insights with fellow researchers at the National Research Council in Serpong, West Java.

The signs include paralysis, shaking, breathing difficulties and changes in brain function, similar to the symptoms of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases.

"You have some 100 cases in Jakarta, and in Irian Jaya I found a much higher incidence," said Gajdusek.

This is not something new -- Gajdusek has visited Irian Jaya since the late 1950s, and returns with his team every year to check on this disease.

Even birds cannot lay eggs in the area due to the lack of calcium in foods in the region.

Exposure

But gradual exposure to the outside world as new roads go in have brought in a more variety of food than sago. "This disease has much declined."

And why Irian Jaya? People in isolated areas, also in Micronesia and Australia, are the targets of Gajdusek and his team at the Study of Child Growth and Development and Disease Patterns in Primitive Cultures, where he is director.

"We would need a much larger budget" to track down necessary blood relatives of respondents in metropolitan areas like Jakarta and New York, he said.

In modern families, spouses often come from a different ethnic background, and siblings often live far apart.

"While in Irian, I see (paralysis) signs in a child, I ask him about his brothers and sisters and I get all 40 of them in 15 minutes."

Gajdusek, unmarried, has probably the most diverse family in the world. He has 54 adopted children, mostly from Papua New Guinea and Micronesia. They range from an eight-year-old to artists and university professors and drop-outs.

Some of them now live with him in his Maryland home in the United States.