A new break­through device, recently cov­ered in Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can, restores par­tial eye­sight to the blind by using sen­sors in the tongue to send sign sig­nals to the brain.  The research comes from neu­ro­sci­en­tist Paul Bach-y-Rita.

Exper­i­ments have shown that:

within 15 min­utes of using the device, blind peo­ple can begin inter­pret­ing spa­tial infor­ma­tion via the Brain­Port, says William Seiple, research direc­tor at the non­profit vision health­care and research orga­ni­za­tion Light­house Inter­na­tional. The elec­trodes spa­tially cor­re­late with the pix­els so that if the cam­era detects light fix­tures in the mid­dle of a dark hall­way, elec­tri­cal stim­u­la­tions will occur along the cen­ter of the tongue.

The the­sis behind the the device, known as the Brain­port, is that we see with our brains, not our eyes.  It comes down to how we learn, not what we learn.

“It becomes a task of learn­ing, no dif­fer­ent than learn­ing to ride a bike,” Arnoldussen says, adding that the “process is sim­i­lar to how a baby learns to see. Things may be strange at first, but over time they become familiar.”

–

This is a guest post from Alex J. Mann.  You can sub­scribe to his blog here and fol­low him on Twit­ter here.