Brainworks

Is everyone else as fascinated as I am in the workings of the brain?

I've just read about an amazing book called "Crashing Through" by Robert Kurzon. In it he tells the account of a technology entrepreneur called Mike May who was blind since age 3, but who recovered his sight 43 years later. Can you imagine what that must be like??? It reminds me of the old Rip Van Winkle story ... except Mike May didn't sleep for those 43 years. He was a champion skier and former CIA analyst of "remarkable courage and intense curiosity".

As one might imagine, these kinds of occurrences are few and far between. Apparently, only 20 cases have been recorded of people regaining their sight in adulthood after being blinded at a young age. One sad tale is of a man in Britain who lost his sight at 10 months of age, and regained it 51 years later in 1958. After the initial euphoria he soon encountered monumental problems. This fellow also had been very active whilst blind - strolling fearlessly through traffic and riding a bicycle with one hand on another cyclist shoulders (so he was no scardy-cat!)

After regaining his sight this Brit was terrified by the traffic, and could only recognize objects once he had handled them. As one might imagine, he could not recognize faces and facial expressions continued to mean nothing to him. The poor man became ever more depressed and died, perfectly fit, 19 months later.

Vision scientists now realize the fault lay not in the eyes, but in the brain. We see passively, but in order to make sense of what we see our brain needs to draw on a vast body of prior learning of images. That's why babies touch, taste and poke everything they meet - they are building up those stores. (And, how many of us have told our children, "Don't touch!!?)

Going back to the fellow in the book, Mike May, after his own surging joy at regaining his sight, he also had the horrible depressing shock of not being able to recognize anything without constant handling, drawing on the brainpower that had served him so well for so long. Lucky for him his sight returned in this more enlightened era, and he is now studying endless strings of visual clues - clues we all take so much for granted, but will always be a struggle for Mike May.

It seems children devote "billions of neurons and years of unconscious effort" to distinguishing and reading faces. I find that particularly interesting as someone who grew up in a household where emotions changed as easily as the weather, and survival depended on being able to 'read the signs' of impending trouble. As an adult I have retained that heightened ability. Whereas my husband grew up in a very calm home, and facial expressions have to be extreme for him to recognize a mood change ...

Oh, the power of parents, and the amazing workings of our brains!

By the way, Mike May's story has a much happier ending ...

Until next time - bye!