[Missouri-l] New Technology Brings “Vision” to the Blind Via the Tongue

[Chip Hailey]

New Technology Brings “Vision” to the Blind Via the Tongue
August 18, 2009 05:00 PM
by
Shannon Firth
The BrainPort uses sunglasses, a camera and an 
electronic “lollipop” to stimulate
the tongue to send signals to the brain, creating 
a new mode of optical sensation.
Bypassing the Eyes to See
Neuroscientists at Wicab, Inc., a Wisconsin-based 
biomedical firm cofounded by neuroscientist
Paul Bach-y-Rita,
recently unveiled the BrainPort
, Scientific American reported.
The BrainPort consists of a digital camera 
affixed to a pair of sunglasses. The camera
collects visual information and sends it to a 
handheld control unit “which converts
the digital signal into electrical 
pulses—replacing the function of the retina,”
Mandy Kendrick explains in Scientific American.
 From the control unit, the signals are sent to 
the tongue through a “lollipop” component
that rests on the tongue. The tongue’s nerves 
receive the electrical signals, “which
feel a little like Pop Rocks or champagne bubbles 
to the user,” Kendrick writes.
 From there, scientists remain unclear on whether 
the visual information is sent to
the brain’s visual cortex or to its somatosensory 
cortex, “where touch data from
the tongue is interpreted,” according to Kendrick.
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's 
UPMC Eye Center is developing standards
with which to compare the BrainPort to other 
vision technologies such as retinal
implants. According to Scientific American, the 
new devices can be used by the blind
as well those with glaucoma and macular degeneration.
"We can't just throw up an eye chart. We have to 
take a step back and describe the
rudimentary precepts that these people are 
getting,” Optometrist Amy Nau told Kendrick.
Background: “How Brainport Works”
Julia Layton, a writer for HowStuffWorks, 
explains that the BrainPort was built on
the principle of
“sensory substitution”
  via “electrotactile stimulation.” Simply put, 
electric currents sent through the
skin—or in this case, the tongue—convey 
information to the brain through pulses using
alternate channels.
Key Player: Paul Bach-y-Rita
Sources in this Story
ScientificAmerican:
  Tasting the Light: Device Lets the Blind "See" with Their Tongues
HowStuffWorks:  How BrainPort Works
Telegraph:  Brain That Changes Itself: into the abyss
Simon Ings: Blink
Charlie Rose:  A discussion about the movie “At First Sight”
Neuroscientist Paul Bach-y-Rita
first introduced the idea of neuroplasticity
—“using one sense to replace another”—in the 
1960s, when most of his colleagues followed
“localisationism,” the theory that sensory 
processes were hardwired and unalterable,
Norman Doidge wrote for the Telegraph.
In Germany, working alongside a team of 
scientists studying vision, he presented
an image to a cat, and saw that the image 
triggered activity in the primary visual
processing area. More importantly, however, 
stroking the cat’s paw and making a noise
also stirred activity in the cat’s visual area, Doidge reported.
Bach-y-Rita also saw his father Pedro recover 
from a stroke, and viewed his recovery
as proof of neuroplasticity. His brother George, 
a medical student at the time, helped
their father relearn to walk, teaching him first 
to crawl. Pedro went on to regain
his speech and learned to write again on a 
typewriter. He even resumed his job as
a professor, and remarried, worked, traveled and 
hiked until he had a heart attack
and died while climbing in the mountains of Colombia.
Bach-y-Rita recalled his father’s autopsy. Upon 
seeing layers of his father’s brain,
he felt “revulsion” but then an epiphany: “[W]hat 
the slides showed was that my father
had had a huge lesion from his stroke and that it 
had never healed, even though he
recovered all those functions. .. I knew that 
meant that somehow his brain had totally
reorganised itself with the work he did with George.”
Videos: Understanding vision and its impact
There are many misconceptions regarding how 
vision works. Simon Ings, author of “
The Eye: A Natural History
” explains, “The eye doesn’t simply drink in the 
world. It hunts for what we need
to know. It jumps, pans, anticipates, our every 
move. Still we imagine that our eyes
are mere windows.”
There are also misconceptions about blindness as 
a disability. Dr. Oliver Sacks chronicled
the struggle of a blind man who saw for the first 
time after surgery in an interview
with Charlie Rose. “All his feelings, and his 
motivations, his strategies were those
of a blind man
suddenly
he had a new sense forced on him, and given to him
,” Sacks told Rose. The story was later adapted 
into a movie in 1999, "At First Sight,"
starring Val Kilmer and Mira Sorvino.
Reference: How the brain works
It may seem like the Internet has an overwhelming 
number of links but it’s really
quite simple compared to the human brain, which 
has roughly 1,000 trillion connections—about
the same as the number of leaves on all the trees in a rainforest.
NEXT: Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy Could Cure Form of Blindness
Source:
findingDulcinea