Plasticity and The Senses: Paul Bach-y-Rita « Neurons Firing. This October 2012 update reflects new links for the videos, as PBS is no longer hosting Wired Science programs. In December 2007 the PBS Wired Science show included a piece about Bach-y-Rita’s research: Mixed Feelings. Here are some additional videos covering some of the same content: BrainPort Vision Through Tongue, BrainPort Balance Device. The first time I heard of Paul Bach-y-Rita was on a public television broadcast of a special show about the brain.
The story of Paul Bach-y-Rita fills the first chapter of Norman Doidge’s book, The Brain That Changes Itself. The stories of Bach-y-Rita – how his father recovered from a stroke and the impact this had on Bach-y-Rita’s career, the people with severe balancing issues who were essentially cured by his discoveries and innovations, and the people who had no vision who were able to begin to see – are compelling in and of themselves. They are very human stories, derived from the work of a man who was altruistically motivated. Amazing? What is the Tongue Display Unit (TDU)? The TDU is a device that can help transmit visual information via the tongue using electro-tactile signals. The dream of beiong able to restore certain functions of vision via tactile senses is actually a very old one, but one we are only beginning to approach today thanks, in part, to a better understanding of how the brain functions, and also to recent technological adavancements like the miniaturisation of computers and capture devices like web-cams.The first visual-tactile interface system was developed by Dr.
Paul Bach-y-Rita in the 1970's. The original tactile visual sensory substitution device (TVSS) was very large (due in part to the large volume of computers and cameras then) and it stimulated the tactile surface of the back to transmit visual information.This system was later adapted by scientist (Kurt Kaczmarek, and Paul Bach-y-Rita) at the University of Wisconsin to use the tactile sense of the tongue to transmit the visual information to the brain. VS Ramachandran on your mind. Sensory substitution. Sensory substitution means to transform the characteristics of one sensory modality into stimuli of another sensory modality. It is hoped that sensory substitution systems can help handicapped people by restoring their ability to perceive a certain defective sensory modality by using sensory information from a functioning sensory modality.
A sensory substitution system consists of three parts: a sensor, a coupling system, and a stimulator. The sensor records stimuli and gives them to a coupling system which interprets these signals and transmits them to a stimulator. In case the sensor obtains signals of a kind not originally available to the bearer it is a case of sensory augmentation. Sensory substitution concerns human perception and the plasticity of the human brain; and therefore, allows us to study these aspects of neuroscience more through neuroimaging.
History[edit] Physiology of sensory substitution[edit] Technological support[edit] Brain plasticity[edit] The vOICe[edit]