My Cure for Blindness.

K

kwhilborn

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I had this idea and wondered if it could be practical.

Stupid Idea is this.
A) Find someone who has bad eyes and no hope of an eye donor.

B) Implant a device into an animals brain that detects signal pulses to the optic nerves. I would guess too much data gets sent, but I do not know for sure how much

C) Transmit these signals to a receiver that can replicate the signals in a human brain giving them the vision of the animal.

The idea is to detect and transmit signal pulses from the optic nerve of an animals eye/brain into a human brain.

I am writing a futuristic Science fiction where someone sees through the eyes of a animal using this method, but began wondering if this could be more than science fiction. I had not considered this practical.

Has anybody even thought to try something like this.

I originally thought with 1.2 million Nerves in the Optic Nerve so it would be impossible.

However watch this on Bionic eyes if you are not familiar ...
[video=youtube;tbv2hebWdlM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbv2hebWdlM[/video]

They seem to be having problems with "The Language" of the pulses. Would not an animals vision already have the correct sequence of pulses. Could we get rid of this camera and instead just detect the pulses in an animals vision.


I realize a person would be looking from the view of an animal, but it would be better than nothing.

I think the idea seems both good and original. Maybe research is already being done. I do not know.

To me this is only a part of my science fiction story. Could it be more? I thought no until I realized Bionic eye technology is already here even if in a beginner format.

Maybe it's just a dumb idea, but these guys are using artificial eyes to send signals. Why not use real signals from a real eye?
 
kwhilborn said:
I had this idea and wondered if it could be practical.

Stupid Idea is this.
A) Find someone who has bad eyes and no hope of an eye donor.

B) Implant a device into an animals brain that detects signal pulses to the optic nerves. I would guess too much data gets sent, but I do not know for sure how much

C) Transmit these signals to a receiver that can replicate the signals in a human brain giving them the vision of the animal.

The idea is to detect and transmit signal pulses from the optic nerve of an animals eye/brain into a human brain.

....

Maybe it's just a dumb idea, but these guys are using artificial eyes to send signals. Why not use real signals from a real eye?
Click to expand...
How would you get the animal to look at the same thing, as the person's attention turned to.
You are a blind person
you hear a noise and wonder what it was.
Your seeing eye dog looks at the cat
The burglar gets away with your possessions without being seen.
 
@ Robbitty bob,
I'm more concerned if it could be a possibility than worry about point of view, but that is a funny notion. You might spend a lot of time watching people eat and chasing cats.

A totally blind person might make a few sacrifices to see their grandchildren. The bionic eyes only detect shading for now.

This idea was and possibly only is suited for science fiction, but when I started seeing it might be possible I thought I'd at least see if anyone has heard of this type of research. It sounds almost ridiculous enough to be plausible.
 
kwhilborn said:
@ Robbitty bob,
I'm more concerned if it could be a possibility than worry about point of view, but that is a funny notion. You might spend a lot of time watching people eat and chasing cats.

A totally blind person might make a few sacrifices to see their grandchildren. The bionic eyes only detect shading for now.

This idea was and possibly only is suited for science fiction, but when I started seeing it might be possible I thought I'd at least see if anyone has heard of this type of research. It sounds almost ridiculous enough to be plausible.
Click to expand...
I liked your idea though, and I do think it could be made to work. A dog is man's best friend and if we saw what the dog saw that would be amazing.
 
Visual Cortical Implant[edit source | edit]
The Visual Cortical ImplantDr. Mohamad Sawan, Professor and Researcher at Polystim neurotechnologies Laboratory at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, has been working on a visual prosthesis to be implanted into the visual cortex. The basic principle of Dr. Sawan’s technology consists of stimulating the visual cortex by implanting a silicon microchip on a network of electrodes, made of biocompatible materials, wherein each electrode injects a stimulating electrical current in order to provoke a series of luminous points to appear (an array of pixels) in the field of vision of the blind person. This system is composed of two distinct parts: the implant and an external controller. The implant is lodged in the visual cortex and wirelessly receives data and energy from the external controller. It contains all the circuits necessary to generate the electrical stimuli and to monitor the changing microelectrode/biological tissue interface. The battery-operated outer controller consists of a micro-camera, which captures images, as well as a processor and a command generator, which process the imaging data to translate the captured images and generate and manage the electrical stimulation process. The external controller and the implant exchange data in both directions by a transcutaneous radio frequency (RF) link, which also powers the implant.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...xoD4Bw&usg=AFQjCNHRxnlDh3x_tkVVGDaL_hYmjtsKqw
 
@ Buddha,
Yes, "Bionic Eyes" are different from the idea of using animal eyes, but your wireless part is fitting.
 
I think basic integrity's can heal blindness, with help and value for such herbs as cinnamon and mint, & good verbal standing..and other wellness suchnesses:rolleyes:
 
"...a device..."? You can't just hand wave over "a device"! That's the the whole invention! Here, I'll invent a warp drive spaceship:

Step 1: invent warp drive.
Step 2: install it in a spaceship.

Simple! Who wants to give me funding?
 
@ Anew,
Maybe you need to lighten up on the herbs. A bot can put together more rational sentences.

@ Russ_Watters,

I have seriously doubted your comprehension abilities in several threads.

If you read the Opening Post, you will see I was asking if something like this could be done. I even labelled it "Stupid Idea"

To me this is only a part of my science fiction story. Could it be more? I thought no until I realized Bionic eye technology is already here even if in a beginner format.

Maybe it's just a dumb idea, but these guys are using artificial eyes to send signals. Why not use real signals from a real eye?
Click to expand...


Nowhere did I infer this idea was practical. I questioned the concept.

Maybe before you start in with ridiculing an idea you will actually read the entire post and let clues like that sink in.

Your comment was a textbook TROLL Do you understand what an INTERNET TROLL IS?

I doubt you do actually (you seem old) so here is a wikipedia description.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)

If you wish to question your warp drive concept then maybe you can ask if it is possible in the physics thread. My idea works in my book whether or not there is real science behind it, in the same way warp drives work well in Sci-fi.

Honestly. I was harsher on this idea than you were. Why not grow a pair (of glasses).
 
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kwhilborn said:
Implant a device into an animal's brain that detects signal pulses to the optic nerves. . . . . Transmit these signals to a receiver that can replicate the signals in a human brain giving them the vision of the animal.
Click to expand...
First off, please remember that humans are animals too. Last time I checked, nobody I've ever met was a plant, fungus, algae, bacteria or archaea. Well, there was that one guy in high school... ;)

More importantly, no two species of animals see the same way. Our eyes are much different, from the layout of the photoreceptors to the types of photoreceptors. Humans have three kinds of cones (daylight photoreceptors that only work in relatively bright light) that are sensitive to three frequencies of electromagnetic radiation, the ones we call red, yellow and blue. Dogs have only two kinds, so the world doesn't look as colorful to them.

On the other hand, many birds have a fourth kind of photoreceptor that goes up into the ultraviolet. This is how they can tell the males from the females: they have ultraviolet pigmentation in their feathers that we can't see.

Many nocturnal animals have no cones at all and just have rods: photoreceptors that are sensitive to a wide spectrum of light but don't differentiate one color from another. They can see better in the dark, but they can't tell red from green.

Even within one species, the layout of the photoreceptors can vary. Long-muzzled dogs tend to have their photoreceptors arranged in a horizontal line so they can easily watch their prey running, whereas short-muzzled dogs have theirs clustered in the middle of their retina so they can see in more detail, but only in a small area. These are the dogs that can read our facial expressions and body language, but can't track the path of a flying frisbee.

If you transmitted the signals from the eyes of any of these other species of animals to a human brain, it would be chaotic. Our brains are not programmed to interpret them.
 
@ Fraggle Rocker,

I knew some animals and Insects would not be compatible. I recall seeing photos of how a Bee sees, etc.

Oh well. It was just a thought. Bionic eyes are only able to send shades of light for now. I thought this might be a bit better.

I also recall an experiment where people wore glasses that made them see upside down. After a few weeks of being sick and bumping into things their vision adapted to the new signals. The process reversed when they removed the glasses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M._Stratton
http://io9.com/5905180/does-your-brain-really-have-the-power-to-see-the-world-upside+down

My recollection was wrong. It appears they learned to function with the impaired perception, but their vision never changed.

1.2 million nerves is a lot so I did not think even the bionic eye was possible, but when I heard of it it made me wonder if the other was possible.

C'est la Vie.
 
I don't think the sensor part is the current limitation of the technology. We have very good digital cameras now, the hard part is implanting a larger number of electrodes in the brain.
 
@ Spidergoat,

I was responding to the way the Bionic Eye researchers say they do not quite know the language of these pulses. They mention that even in the video in OP. I thought this idea would "Simply" (I know not simple if even possible) measure and retransmit a pulse language from one being to another instead of inventing the pulse language from scratch.

Yes. 1.2 million optic nerves would require a lot of electrodes.
 
Robittybob1 said:
How would you get the animal to look at the same thing, as the person's attention turned to.
You are a blind person
you hear a noise and wonder what it was.
Your seeing eye dog looks at the cat
The burglar gets away with your possessions without being seen.
Click to expand...

it's still better than not seeing anything at all.
 
youreyes said:
it's still better than not seeing anything at all.
Click to expand...
This is my cure for blindness:
1 As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" 3 Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." 6 When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, 7 saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.
Click to expand...
http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/Miracles-Blind.htm

Mud and spit and then wash it off. If only it was so easy!
 
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