Tonight we're reviewing some medical miracles and in this one scientists research whether it's possible to restore the ability to see to a person who has been long blinded. (Science Daily: After blindness, the adult brain can learn to see again)
Note: the following article reviews restoration of nerve sensitivity after amputation or similar injury. We're talking big league miracles. (Ithaka: Restoring the Nervous System After Grievous Injury)
Probably there's no injury more terrifying to us than blindness but the science is researching whether the affliction really is permanent.
The perceptual and brain responses of a group of patients were assessed before and after the implantation of a prosthetic implant that senses visual signals and transmits them to the brain by stimulating axons of retinal ganglion cells. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers found that patients learned to recognize unusual visual stimuli, such as flashes of light, and that this ability correlated with increased brain activity. However, this change in brain activity, observed at both the thalamic and cortical level, took extensive training over a long period of time to become established: the more the patient practiced, the more their brain responded to visual stimuli, and the better they perceived the visual stimuli using the implant. In other words, the brain needs to learn to see again.
The results are important as they show that after the implantation of a prosthetic device the brain undergoes plastic changes to re-learn how to make use of the new artificial and probably aberrant visual signals. They demonstrate a residual plasticity of the sensory circuitry of the adult brain after many years of deprivation, which can be exploited in the development of new prosthetic implants.
Note: the following article reviews restoration of nerve sensitivity after amputation or similar injury. We're talking big league miracles. (Ithaka: Restoring the Nervous System After Grievous Injury)
Probably there's no injury more terrifying to us than blindness but the science is researching whether the affliction really is permanent.
The perceptual and brain responses of a group of patients were assessed before and after the implantation of a prosthetic implant that senses visual signals and transmits them to the brain by stimulating axons of retinal ganglion cells. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers found that patients learned to recognize unusual visual stimuli, such as flashes of light, and that this ability correlated with increased brain activity. However, this change in brain activity, observed at both the thalamic and cortical level, took extensive training over a long period of time to become established: the more the patient practiced, the more their brain responded to visual stimuli, and the better they perceived the visual stimuli using the implant. In other words, the brain needs to learn to see again.
The results are important as they show that after the implantation of a prosthetic device the brain undergoes plastic changes to re-learn how to make use of the new artificial and probably aberrant visual signals. They demonstrate a residual plasticity of the sensory circuitry of the adult brain after many years of deprivation, which can be exploited in the development of new prosthetic implants.
- Science Daily
In other words, there is hope. There is no cure as yet but you see they ardently working toward one. We do offer hope, something you will never find in Facebook science. Beware of it. (Ithaka: The Facebook Assault on Medical Research on Vaccination Science)
(Ed: will you ever lighten up on social network science?)
Not likely so long as they continue posing as online Messiahs with nothing more to offer than false and discredited science. We only support the real thing as you see above and, yes, we have reviewed all the references provided by the anti-vaxx crew. They're not only a danger to themselves but to everyone else in their promulgation of an anti-science vibe in favor of their own self-aggrandizing supremacy without the faintest iota of scientific legitimacy to justify it.
(Ed: I get it.)
I'm somewhat apologetic but it burns my ass that it's been going on for years and the same people are voters so what intelligence and inductive reasoning do you suppose they bring to that.
(Ed: are you going to get political?)
No. For all I know, those cheeseheads will write in Barney the Dinosaur because an elf told them and they believe him.
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