The brain can learn to "see" again after blindness
A study going on at the University of Pisa, Italy made a breakthrough discovery in the understanding of what happens in the human brain after someone goes blind. These researchers have recently uncovered that the brain can learn to “ see again” after many years after a person went completely blind.
The study involved seven patients, who all have the hereditary condition of Retinitis Pigmentosa, which causes cells in the retina to die, resulting in vision loss and over time total blindness. Each of these patients had received a prosthetic eye that senses visual signals and sends them to the brain. These signals reach the brain by stimulating the axons of the ganglions cells that receive the visual information. Researchers used functional MRI (fMRI) scans to observe the patient’s brains and the responses to the visual information before and after the implants. These researches discovered that the patients were able to recognize visual cues likes flashes of light, because there was an increase in brain activity in the fMRI scans. The more exposure these patients had the better they had become at perceiving visual stimuli with the aid of their implant.
This research answers the question of whether the brain is able to regain the ability to see and process visual information after an individual loses their vision. This discovery does not mean that a cure of blindness has been found, but it does offer hope to researchers that are working to develop implants to aid people who no longer have their vision.
We spent a large amount of time in class going over the eye in great detail by looking at the different cells in the brain as well as the pathway that the visual information takes to get to the brain and once it is in the brain. It is interesting to think about if these patients are able to experience anything else besides light. I would like to know if they are able to differentiate colors of light or outlines of objects because it would still be hard to live a typical life just be seeing light. It is also interesting to think about the cells that are still activated in the brain. If they are able to recognize flashes of light, would there be more rods still activated than cones because they are more sensitive to light or is that just the only thing that their brain is able to detect. This seemed like a relatively novel study so it will be interesting to look at the progress they make in a few years and if amount of visual stimuli that is able to be detected increases.
This is an interesting question but I would like to know how it will affect these people in their cultural setting. For instance the deaf community is very close and people who get cochlear implants are left in an in between spot, not quite deaf and not quite hearing.
ReplyDeleteA factor that must be considered is that blindness can be caused by a break in any part of the complex system that contributes to vision. Blunt force to the back of the head can cause damage which can also contribute to blindness. While this research may be revolutionary, it seems it only targets one specific cause for blindness. This leads to an interesting question regarding what other ways can the community "reverse" the affects of blindness?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe title of this summary immediately captured my attention. It has been a question of mine how able blind individuals are to become in sync with their environment after a lengthy period of time living without vision. There are some people I have witness walk effortlessly through their surrounding environment, who I eventually realize have a walking stick. The question of whether they became better at using the walking stick or were able to sense their environment more efficiently without having to use the walking stick in excess, came to mind. Your commentary also contained a more specified observation of my previously posed questions on blindness, including if they sensed colors or outlines of objects. I watched a video of a boy who could "see" his surroundings by making a clicking noise with his mouth and sensing objects surrounding him by the sound waves that bounced of the objects in his physical path. In this instance, he could perceive the outlines of the objects, but not color. He also could not sense large holes or concaves in the ground as his clicking noise could not send sound waves back from those structures. This scenario may also be applicable to how one functions after blindness and a possible adaptation to the lack of visual stimuli.
ReplyDelete