Narrator: You'll have to forgive Karen Lerman if she comes off a little over the top when describing her son's artwork.

Jonathan Lerman: I'm done.

Karen Lerman: I derive so much pressure from looking at these drawings. I was shaking when I realized that there's this island of genius that I had no idea.

Narrator: It's not just that her 14-year-old from upstate New York is wowing professional art circles all over the world.

Woman: The eyes are very expressive.

Narrator: How is this kid?

Man: He's pushing all sorts of boundaries.

Narrator: It's not just that his drawings are commanding up to $2,000 a piece.

Jonathan Lerman: Good morning.

Narrator: It's that Jonathan Lerman has autism—

Jonathan Lerman: He's bald.

Narrator: —a puzzling form of brain damage that severely limits his ability to communicate.

Therapist: Should we start speech?

Jonathan Lerman: Yeah.

Therapist: Autistic children need to be taught pretty much everything.

Jonathan Lerman: We see.

Therapist: We see it. Do you want to put it with see or touch?

Jonathan Lerman: See.

Therapist: They don't learn from the environment the way normal kids do.

Karen Lerman: We went from thinking that we had a fairly significantly handicapped child to realizing that we had a gifted child.

Jonathan Lerman: I want to do my sculpture.

Narrator: It wasn't until Jonathan started drawing in an after school program when he was 10 that his parents realized the depth of his talent and his emotion.

Karen Lerman: It's so incredible how moving it is— the expression in the face of the clown, the sadness that comes through, and the loneliness, and the isolation he feels is all there. And he's letting us know through his drawings because he really can't verbally tell us that.

Narrator: So this is a bit of a window.

Jonathan Lerman: Absolutely. It's a window into his world, basically.

DR. BRUCE MILLER: It's really the paradox of autism— this combination of deficit and great strength.

Narrator: Francisco neurologist, Dr. Bruce Miller, has been studying these islands of brilliance within damaged brains like Jonathan's.

DR. BRUCE MILLER: I think these pictures in children with autism come out almost like an instinct. This is something that is firing in the brain and comes right out onto the paper. I think his brain is a beehive of visual activity. And I think it's telling us that his brain is very active and very functional.

Narrator: While he and other scientists still aren't sure how such remarkable talent can emerge, Dr. Miller has found some clues in another group of extraordinary and unlikely artists.

Audrey Cyr: And we go in.

Narrator: People like 87-year-old Audrey Cyr of Mandeville, Louisiana.

Woman 2: I think it's perfect, Audrey.

Narrator: Four years ago, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. That's when her amazing ability was suddenly unleashed— talent she'd never shown before, not once in her entire life, according to her daughter-in-law, Kathy.

Kathy: I'm real excited to have this. The neurologist suggested that we try different things that she hadn't ever done before to challenge parts of her brain that she hadn't used.

Audrey Cyr: Isn't that fun?

Kathy: So I took her to a local art class and signed her up. And she started producing these incredible works. And we're like, how did you do this?

Woman 2: Now you've got to button it.

Audrey Cyr: Oh. This one? This one.

DR. BRUCE MILLER: When you see someone like Audrey Cyr, and you can see her painting—

Audrey Cyr: Whoa, whoa.

Woman 2: Perfect.

DR. BRUCE MILLER: —you know that that dementia has unlocked something and that this would never probably have occurred if it hadn't been for that degenerative disease.

Narrator: Is this sort of the way in which a blind man develops a better sense of smell?

DR. BRUCE MILLER: Yes.

Audrey Cyr: Oh, that's better.

Woman 2: Ooh, that's beautiful.

Audrey Cyr: That's better.

Narrator: And Doctor Miller has seen this kind of compensation in half a dozen of his patients suffering from dementia.

DR. BRUCE MILLER: This is a normal, healthy brain here. And this is a patient with dementia. This white here represents fluid. And the fluid is there because the brain has atrophied. It has been lost. And this is the language area that has lost tissue.

Narrator: That's the left hemisphere of the brain— the area damaged in both an autistic child, like Jonathan, and an Alzheimer's patient, like Audrey.

Kathy: It's pork chop, isn't that good?

Audrey Cyr: It's called pork chop?

Kathy: Mhm.

Narrator: Somehow, the damage on the left side actually strengthens the right side.

DR. BRUCE MILLER: Yet, this visual part of the brain, I think the right side of the brain, is suddenly expressing itself in a way that it never had before. And it's expressing itself in pictures.

Narrator: Unfortunately for Audrey, this period of creativity will be short-lived, according to Dr. Miller, for unlike Johnathan—

[phone ringing]

Audrey Cyr: What's that?

Narrator: —the right side of Audrey's brain will eventually be ravaged as well.

DR. BRUCE MILLER: The precision is lost, the details go away, and then the desire to paint altogether disappears.

Audrey Cyr: Now I can go this way?

Woman 2: Yes.

Audrey Cyr: Oh yeah.

Narrator: The light goes out.

DR. BRUCE MILLER: The light goes out.

Narrator: But until it's extinguished, this burst of brilliance is providing scientists with a better understanding of how our complex brains work.

Audrey Cyr: Mmm, mmm, mm.

Woman 2: It's beautiful.

DR. BRUCE MILLER: We don't know why this happens, but I think it does suggest that there are lots of talents that all of us have that are turned off. And I think that it really shows the great potential of human beings.

Narrator: Are there fewer sad days now because of his artwork for you as a mom?

Karen Lerman: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, because he's is so happy when he's drawing. He has a way to communicate—

Jonathan Lerman: This is good.

Karen Lerman: —which was so frustrating for him.