The brain... a question.

[RyanJ]

Hi all!

 

I have a question. I read a paper a while ago where some ferrets has the visual part of their brain destroyed but their eyesight seemed to be restored by hooking the nerves to the sound center of the brain, the part that processes sounds from the ears.

 

My question is this: To what extent can this occur and also does that mean that the sences are interchangable in that one can become the other under the right circumstances?

 

Discussions and contributions please

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[Edtharan]

I have heard of similar expereiments too. From what I understand, the brain is very mallable (not just squishy ), in how it operates. It seems that the brain will accept any type of regular input and allow it to be processed and used by other parts of the brain.

 

This could be interesting. Imagin that we have a "chip" that can be implanted into the brain. It has conections that allow input and output to it and is compatable with the neurons in the brain. If this "Chip" could be linked to auxillery processing (like a computer, the internet, or just into a wierless network with other "Chipped" people), would it be posable I wonder?

[RyanJ]

This could be interesting. Imagin that we have a "chip" that can be implanted into the brain. It has conections that allow input and output to it and is compatable with the neurons in the brain. If this "Chip" could be linked to auxillery processing (like a computer' date=' the internet, or just into a wierless network with other "Chipped" people), would it be posable I wonder?[/quote']

 

It should be possible with the right knowledge of how to make an intergrate it.

 

If it is possible for this to occur with little or no limitations then theoretically we can give blind people sight by re-wiring the brain, hooking up the optical nerves to another part of the brain...

 

Does this mean we can treat the sences as one whole just sub-divided into parts because thats what it seems like - very interchangable.

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[sabbath]

interesting possibility.

[WillTheNewf]

I read your study and another one where cats were given eyepatches for two weeks when birthed.. Well after the eyepatch was removed, the cat had little or no vision in that eye, but spectacular vision in the other one. The patched eye 'circuitry' got linked up with the other eye. Most Children who had labotomy's developed into normal adults, with the one half of the brain working for the both sides. Most adults, however, became fried after them. So yes, I believe the brain is extremly malleable, but mostly only to a certain age. That's why most of us can't remember our childhood very clearly, our brains were being 'manufactured.'

 

This is all in a book i read, "The mind and the Brain." Good book, but a bit to detailed in the vocabulary.

[RyanJ]

Thats an interesting idea, when children, cats, whatever, are yound their brain is in an indecisive state where it can be easily "rewired" and work normally then as they get older it gets harder to "rewire"... just like memory in that sence I guess. Is that what you meant?

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[Edtharan]

It is known that through childhood that our brains make many many conections, Many more than needed. During adolecence, the brain starts to prune these connections and we loose a lot of them ( so this is not just down to drinking too much ).

 

Once we reach adulthood (actually around 25 years old), our brains find it difficult to make new connections (but it still can). This explains why it is more difficult to learn a language after a certain age (12 IIRC), because our brains have switched from making new connections to removeing them, or we have our adult brains. This also can explain why the labotomy did not effect the children as much, because they were able to grow new connections rapidly and the brain could "re-wire" its self to compensate, but the adults have stoped this re-wireing and so were not able to compensate.

 

So, if we were going to implant a chip (or other cybernetics) into the brain then we would first need to be able to "switch on" this connecting period of the brain (at least in the region where the chip is implanted), or have them installed soon after birth (the latest would probably be around 5 or 6, but 2 or 3 might be the best age).

 

If it is possible for this to occur with little or no limitations then theoretically we can give blind people sight by re-wiring the brain, hooking up the optical nerves to another part of the brain...

There have been experiments along this line, I have heard of several.

 

One was the use of a camera that directly stimulated the optic nerve of the patient. This was able to restor some sight to the person.

 

Another was for people that once had sight but for some reson no longer has it. In this experiment they had a paddle shaped electrode that was placed on the tounge (they have used other places like the back, arms and forehead). The electrode had many small points that could stimulate the tounge with a small electric zap. This device was also hooked up to a camera and the patient put the electrode onto their tounge. The camers (and computer) would interperate the image from the camera and convert that into zaps on the electrode. After about 20 mins of this the patient stoped feeling the zaps as pain sensation and began to "see". The patent was able to "see" well enough to be able to catch a ball rolled across the ground to him. This effect was not limited to blind people. Sighted people that used this (and blindfolded themselves) was soon able to use this device.

 

It seems that the brain can change its connections and re-direct infomation so as to use it in a coherent way.

[ecoli]

I saw a Sci AM fronteirs show where they were able to hook up a blind man's optical nerves to a camera thing... the man who had never seen before in his entire life was able to detect light and even some colors.

[sunspot]

It seems very possible to rewire the sensory systems into other parts of the brain. The data signals from all the sensory systems are probably within the same range of neuro-input parameters and the neurons of the brain are fairly uniform with respect to form and function.

 

As an analogy, one can plug all kinds of things into a USB port. Usually most computers have many such ports and once the computer is set up most people do not swap anything around. If one decided to switch all the devices to different USB ports, the computer and software would take a little time to adjst but would recognize the new order and let them play from there. This is probably the analogy of a small child.

 

As one gets older. It should still possible but would add confusion that needs to be overcome. For example, if an audio input device, i.e, hearing, is wired into the visual area it would trigger visual imagery. Eventually one would recognize the visual parallel to sounds and be able to interpret the sound within the visual imagination Eventually it may become natural enough where an outsider might not be able to tell the difference with respect to what is going on inside that person's brain.

[Edtharan]

An experiment I would like to do is to hook up some form of range finder (sonar or something else) that has an operation range of a few dozen metres and connect it to a system that interperates it and then uses touch (like various places on your arm) to indicate the distance that it is reading.

 

This then could be mounted on your head (or arm) and you use this to determine the distances to various objects (walls and such). A user could use this to build up a picture of a room to help navigate around it (an aid for visualy impaired people).

 

This type of system relise heavily on feedback between the divice (say where it is pointing) and what the person feels. In other experiments like this the user would make no progress with it unless this feedbackloop existed.