In the Watchmen Comic and film who was psychic Robert Deschaines based on if anyone? And why if so?

Psychic Robert Deschaines provided the genetic base for the creation of Ozymandias' fake alien that killed the better part of New York city in the Watchmen Comic and film. He is specifically mentioned in the New Frontiersman excerpt at the end of chapter VIII of the comic where it is mentioned that his head was stolen from his recently deceased body. Someone else going by the dandreiberg user_name suggested Duchenne muscular dystrophy. I didn't see the connection, but this lead me to Duchenne de Boulogne who was "a French neurologist who revived Galvani's research and greatly advanced the science of electrophysiology" in many ways, the founder of modern scientific studies of the nervous system. Anyone else know anything or have any ideas?