[optacon-l] Re: Seeing with your tongue.
- From: "don bishop" <w6smb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 14:51:20 -0700
Well, it could also hamper your ability to talk! <smile>
Don
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cindy Handel" <cindy425@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, June 06, 2009 2:41 PM
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Seeing with your tongue.
I thought about how it would feel. I'm not sure I'd like the sensation
on
my tongue.
Cindy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sharon Lash" <slash591@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, June 06, 2009 5:28 PM
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Seeing with your tongue.
Wow! What a magnificent article. I would love to get a hold of that
device!
----- Original Message -----
From: "H & C Arnold" <4carolyna@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 9:14 AM
Subject: [optacon-l] Seeing with your tongue.
> Seeing with your tongue.
>>>>>
>>>>> By RON SEELY, 608-252-6131, rseely@xxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>>
>>>>> Roger Behm lost his sight at 16, the victim of an inherited
>>>>> disease
>>>>> that
>>>>> destroyed his retinas. Both of his eyes were surgically removed.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now 55, Behm has made himself at home in a sightless world. He
>>>>> started
>>>>> his own
>>>>> business in Janesville selling devices that help the blind cope
>>>>> with
>>>>> day-to-day tasks. He and his wife have raised five children and
>>>>> just
>>>>> adopted another child from China who is also blind. He fishes,
>>>>> canoes,
>>>>> camps and scuba dives.
>>>>>
>>>>> But Behm can remember seeing. Which is why he couldn't believe it
>>>>> when,
>>>>> three
>>>>> years ago, he slipped a device over his head, turned it on, and
>>>>> was
>>>>> once
>>>>> again
>>>>> able to discern light and dark, shapes and shadows, letters and
>>>>> numbers,
>>>>> and even a rolling golf ball.
>>>>> "I could look down and and see the ball, white on black, and I
>>>>> could
>>>>> see myself
>>>>> swinging my putter," Behm said. "And, of course, I missed. But I
>>>>> could
>>>>> reach
>>>>> down and pick up my ball, like any other sighted person."
>>>>> The device is called BrainPort and, though it seems like a gadget
>>>>> from
>>>>> Star Trek, it may be available commercially by the end of the
>>>>> year.
>>>>>
>>>>> It works by converting images from a video camera to electrical
>>>>> impulses
>>>>> that are transmitted via the tongue to the brain of the blind
>>>>> person
>>>>> and
>>>>> turned again
>>>>> into black-and-white images that the user sees.
>>>>> It takes advantage of groundbreaking work by a UW-Madison
>>>>> scientist
>>>>> that showed
>>>>> the brain will reprogram itself to accept and use different
>>>>> sensory
>>>>> signals - in
>>>>> this case touch instead of sight - to replace signals that can no
>>>>> longer
>>>>> be received due to injury or disease.
>>>>> The device, which consists of a miniature camera mounted on a pair
>>>>> of
>>>>> sunglasses, a tongue sensor and a small control unit, was
>>>>> developed by
>>>>> Wicab of Middleton. It builds on another of the company's devices
>>>>> that
>>>>> uses the same underlying ideas to help restore users' balance.
>>>>> The company is applying to the federal Food and Drug
>>>>> Administration to
>>>>> get
>>>>> approval for a marketable version of the vision device that could
>>>>> be
>>>>> available
>>>>> by the end of the year, Wicab CEO Robert Beckman said.
>>>>>
>>>>> Trying circumstances.
>>>>>
>>>>> Few have tested BrainPort under more trying circumstances than
>>>>> Erik
>>>>> Weihenmayer,
>>>>> the only blind man to reach the summit of Mt. Everest.
>>>>> Weihenmayer,
>>>>> totally
>>>>> blind since the age of 16, has used the device to help him hike in
>>>>> the
>>>>> woods,
>>>>> even ascend climbing walls. But he has most appreciated it for
>>>>> letting
>>>>> him do
>>>>> such simple but rewarding tasks as playing tic-tac-toe with his
>>>>> daughter
>>>>> or reaching down to pet his dog.
>>>>>
>>>>> "I have a climbing friend who didn't believe me when I told him
>>>>> about
>>>>> this,"
>>>>> Weihenmayer said. "So he put a Pepsi can on my table in my kitchen
>>>>> while
>>>>> I was
>>>>> out of the room. Then he called me back in and told me to grab it.
>>>>> I
>>>>> reached out
>>>>> and grabbed the Pepsi can. He was blown away. He was speechless.
>>>>> He
>>>>> had
>>>>> tears in his eyes.
>>>>> "I mean, it may not seem like a real big deal to people, but to be
>>>>> able
>>>>> to
>>>>> see your coffee cup ... ."
>>>>>
>>>>> Neither Behm nor Weihenmayer are paid consultants to Wicab,
>>>>> although
>>>>> the
>>>>> company pays some of their expenses.
>>>>>
>>>>> The late Paul Bach-y-Rita, a UW-Madison physician and specialist
>>>>> in
>>>>> rehabilitation, first came up with the ideas that inspired
>>>>> BrainPort
>>>>> in
>>>>> the 1960s. The technology was patented by UW-Madison in 1998, and
>>>>> commercial
>>>>> development has been under way for more than 10 years.
>>>>>
>>>>> New ways to work.
>>>>> Bach-y-Rita's earliest thinking about the brain's ability to
>>>>> adapt to
>>>>> new ways
>>>>> of receiving and processing information - its "plasticity," as it
>>>>> is
>>>>> known now -
>>>>> was likely sparked by the dramatic struggle of his father, Pedro,
>>>>> to
>>>>> recover from a devastating stroke in the mid-1960s, Beckman said.
>>>>> Neurologists in those days believed brain damage could not be
>>>>> reversed.
>>>>> But
>>>>> Bach-y-Rita's brother, George, soon put their father to work doing
>>>>> chores such
>>>>> as sweeping the porch of the house. Forced to accomplish more and
>>>>> more
>>>>> difficult
>>>>> tasks, their father eventually recovered completely and even went
>>>>> back
>>>>> to
>>>>> his job teaching.
>>>>> He died at the age of 73 of a heart attack while climbing in the
>>>>> mountains of
>>>>> Columbia.
>>>>> Remarkably, studies of Pedro's brain after his death showed
>>>>> massive
>>>>> damage to his brain from the stroke. Yet he recovered. Somehow,
>>>>> his
>>>>> brain had found new ways to work.
>>>>> At the UW-Madison, Bach-y-Rita focused his studies on sensory
>>>>> substitution, the idea that the brain can learn how to use other
>>>>> senses
>>>>> to replace one that has been lost or damaged. He concentrated on
>>>>> the
>>>>> power of touch, studying what happens in the brain when visual
>>>>> cues
>>>>> come from the sensitive nerves of the
>>>>> skin, such as those on the fingertips.
>>>>>
>>>>> Perfect organ.
>>>>>
>>>>> Those studies buttressed others that showed the brain can indeed
>>>>> learn
>>>>> how to use nerve impulses, delivered through touch, to create
>>>>> images.
>>>>> Exactly what happens remains somewhat of a mystery. But more
>>>>> recently,
>>>>> MRI images taken of the brain while it is working do show the
>>>>> visual
>>>>> cortex of the brain
>>>>> lighting up when receiving sensory data retrieved through touch.
>>>>> "The information does get to the area of the brain that is
>>>>> responsible
>>>>> for vision," said Kurt Kaczmarek, a UW-Madison engineer and
>>>>> scientist
>>>>> who was involved in the early work on BrainPort.
>>>>> The tongue is the perfect organ for the task, Beckman said,
>>>>> because it
>>>>> is moist
>>>>> and an excellent transmitter of electrical signals, and it has
>>>>> more
>>>>> tactile nerve endings than any other part of the body except for
>>>>> the
>>>>> lips.
>>>>>
>>>>> Though one can read the science over and over again, it still
>>>>> requires
>>>>> somewhat
>>>>> of a leap of faith to grasp the idea of "seeing" through the
>>>>> tongue.
>>>>> Simply, the
>>>>> patterns of light picked up by the camera are converted by a tiny
>>>>> computer into
>>>>>> electrical pulses across 100 stainless steel electrodes. Users
>>>>>> say it
>>>>>> feels similar to touching a weak battery to your tongue, a bubbly
>>>>>> or
>>>>>> tingling sensation.
>>>>>
>>>>> The pulses are spatially encoded, meaning the person receiving
>>>>> those
>>>>> signals on the tongue can perceive depth, perspective, size and
>>>>> shape.
>>>>> That information is translated by the brain into images - fuzzy
>>>>> images, because of the low resolution, but images nonetheless.
>>>>> Those
>>>>> who have used the device explain
>>>>> that they perceive the objects in front of them, separate from
>>>>> their
>>>>> own
>>>>> bodies. A milestone of sorts. Weihenmayer recalled how when he
>>>>> first
>>>>> tried BrainPort, the researchers sat
>>>>> him down at a table, fitted him with the device, and then rolled a
>>>>> ball
>>>>> toward
>>>>> him.
>>>>> "It's a hard thing to wrap your brain around," said Weihenmayer.
>>>>> "But
>>>>> when they
>>>>> rolled a white tennis ball toward me, I could feel the ball
>>>>> rolling.
>>>>> First I could feel the ball starting at the back of my tongue and
>>>>> getting bigger and bigger, coming toward me. And then I reached
>>>>> out
>>>>> and
>>>>> grabbed it."
>>>>> When he ascends a rock climbing wall with BrainPort, Weihenmayer
>>>>> said,
>>>>> he
>>>>> can see the handholds, their differences in shape and the contrast
>>>>> in
>>>>> light between
>>>>> them and the background. What he sees, he explained, is largely
>>>>> shapes
>>>>> and light
>>>>> variations, sort of an out-of-focus image.
>>>>> Last month, Weihenmayer joined Beckman at the National Eye
>>>>> Institute's
>>>>> 40th
>>>>> anniversary celebration to demonstrate BrainPort and some of its
>>>>> powers.
>>>>> It
>>>>> seemed a milestone of sorts.
>>>>> But the man whose genius led to the creation of such a useful
>>>>> invention
>>>>> was not present. Bach-y-Rita died of cancer in November of 2006.
>>>>> "He would have loved to have been there," said Beckman.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
> -
>
>
> In God We Trust,
>
> Carolyn
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