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Wow, moving right along! The bits are coming for your brain!<br>
<br>
I wonder how they actually know what the brain sees? I mean, she
presents these mock up images of what the brain sees under each
treatment option, but it's not so obvious to me how they actually
know that. Problem of consciousness and all that.<br>
<br>
I also know that while the retina does do some encoding of the
signal, it doesn't reach the level she talks about at the beginning
(this is an image of a baby), it's more like edge detection, motion
detection, contrast & color processing, and other low-level
tasks. Which is why it's easily to duplicate with a chip: it
doesn't depend on any knowledge stored in the brain, it's very
algorithmic, and everyones retina implements the same thing. The
visual part of the brain (near the back, at the other end of the
optic nerve) actually does most of the heavy lifting in terms of
pattern recognition - and it's a much harder thing to model, since
it does depend on your knowledge of "trees", "cats", etc... she also
fails to mention that people born blind probably won't benefit much
from this treatment, since they never developed the visual cortex
properly. Getting signals to it would be only the first stage in a
much more elaborate treatment. <br>
<br>
So yeah, in the end, I'm wondering - what did they actually do with
the animals (or did they test with humans?) to verify their work?
Did they do object recognition tests? Or what?<br>
<br>
I found some links, but don't have time to read them today:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://physiology.med.cornell.edu/faculty/nirenberg/lab/">http://physiology.med.cornell.edu/faculty/nirenberg/lab/</a><br>
<br>
Maybe someone can read more and chime in with a less fluffy version
of her presentation?<br>
<br>
Eric<br>
<br>
On 1/18/12 9:19 AM, Alan Majer wrote:
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<div>Interesting TED video on taping the optic nerve to send
camera info directly to the brain:</div>
<div> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.ideaconnection.com/innovation-videos/345-camera-to-brain-blindness-treatment.html?ref=nl011812">http://www.ideaconnection.com/innovation-videos/345-camera-to-brain-blindness-treatment.html?ref=nl011812</a></div>
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