The Blind Climber Who “Sees” With His Tongue
Erik Weihenmayer was born with retinoschisis, a disease that is macular degenerative and affects the nerve in the eye. Weihenmayer was completely blind by age thirteen. He had a deep love for climbing and even after going blind he still climbed. In 2001 Weihenmayer was the first and only to date blind man to climb to the summit of Mount Everest.
Now Weihenmayer climbs with the help of a devise called a BrainPort. This tool allows for Weihenmayer to see things with his tongue. People who see with their eyes see things when light hits the retina making electrical impulses and the brain translates them into pictures. The BrainPort takes light and makes it into electrical impulses that stimulate the tongue instead of the retinas and the impulse is sent to the brain and the brain translates them into pictures. Visual inputs are sent from the tongue to the brain in much the same way they would be sent from the eyes of a seeing individual. The tongue is full of tactile nerve endings that can differentiate two points that are less than a millimeter apart.
The information the BrainPort sends to the user is two dimensional. The user sees lines and has to figure out location, dimension, and perspective. When Weihenmayer is climbing with the BrainPort he uses his hand as a scale because he knows its size and distance. He waves his hand in front of the rock that he is reaching for to judge the distance and size.
The BrainPort is a very incredible tool that gives sight to those who would otherwise not be able to see. With the BrainPort Weihenmayer is able to kick a soccer ball back and forth with his daughter from fifteen feet away. He is also able to identify the x’s and o’s in tic-tac-toe. The hard thing for Weihenmayer is to differentiate shadows from objects because the BrainPort is unable to distinguish between them.
Paul Bach-y-Rita a co-creator of the BrainPort believed that one sense could take the place of the other. Kind of like how a blind person can read by using their sense of touch. Bach-y Rita used this idea of substitution to develop the BrainPort. He said that, “We see with our brain and not our eyes.”
The defense advanced Research Agency is also looking into the BrainPort technology and they are funding research for devises that could benefit the military. They want a device that makes it possible for a diver to swim in a straight line in a dense fog at night. Many advancement have been made in this area and are greatly benefiting the blind and military.
Response:
I think that the BrainPort is a great devise that helps those who would otherwise not be able to see anything. It is amazing how the tongue is used to help a blind man see. The idea that the brain uses visual inputs from the tongue and creates an image from them shows how intricate the brain is. I think that it is amazing that people can use their tongue to see when they have lost the use of their eyes.
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jul/23-the-blind-climber-who-sees-through-his-tongue/?searchterm=the%20blind%20climber
posted by Stacey Evans @ 3:28 PM
3 Comments:
It is so amazing that someone without sight can use his tougne to sense the things around him. This is proof of how far technology has come. It is also interesting how the loss of one sense can be overtaken by the strength of another. It shows how complex and perfect God made us.
It's so amazing how far technology has come. For someone to see with their tongue instead of their eyes is amazing! I think it's really cool how they are trying to get the BrainPort to help the military.
Its wierd to think that this sensor thing lets a blind person basically see. This device scans the area aroung and then it relays it back to your tongue, which apparently is very sensitive, giving you this sort of picture. Also the shade part where when he goes outside he has trouble differentiating between objects, but with time he learned. The brain is just so complex that with enough time, and God it seems like it could do anything.
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