{"id":31737,"date":"2019-01-25T03:49:43","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T11:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=31737"},"modified":"2019-01-24T10:06:08","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T18:06:08","slug":"seeing-with-the-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2019\/01\/25\/seeing-with-the-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing with the brain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-very-dark-gray-color wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Prof. Amir Amedi of the Hebrew\nUniversity answers questions from attendees at a Jan. 16 presentation. <em>(photo\nby Pat Johnson)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A white cane has been used for generations to\nhelp guide the mobility of people who are blind. Researchers at the Hebrew\nUniversity of Jerusalem created the EyeCane, which added technology that\nindicates to the user the distance to obstructions. From there, other\ntechnological advances were added to identify the types of items in the area \u2013\na couch, chairs, table, lamp \u2013 and convey the information to the user\u2019s ear.\nStill not satisfied, the scientists combined the invention with artificial\nintelligence and complex auditory accompaniments so that the user could\nidentify the size, shape, colour, brightness and other attributes of the space\naround them to get a full \u201cpicture\u201d of their surroundings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Presented by the Vancouver chapter of the\nCanadian Friends of the Hebrew University, Prof. Amir Amedi spoke at Schara\nTzedeck Synagogue Jan. 16. Amedi is a professor in Hebrew University\u2019s\ndepartment of medical neurobiology and an adjoint research professor at the\nSorbonne in Paris. He is currently a visiting professor at McGill University in\nMontreal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The interdisciplinary marriage of computer\nscience, neurology, philosophy, rehabilitation, physics and other fields is\nleading to unprecedented advances in aids for people with disabilities. Some of\nthe foremost innovation is taking place at Hebrew University, where Amedi works\nwith a large team across many faculties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The EyeCane is just one example of the sorts of\ntools being developed in Amedi\u2019s lab, items that are known as\nsensory-substitution devices (SSDs). The most common SSD is the written word,\nAmedi explained. For millennia, humans communicated only verbally. Written\nlanguage is a device that substitutes two senses \u2013 speaking and hearing \u2013 into\na different form: writing and reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Amedi discussed the development of agriculture,\nthen cities, then written language, then printing, each of which took tens of\nthousands of years to evolve, allowing the human brain plenty of time to\naccommodate the changes. Today, though, new technologies come flying at us\ndaily and the question this raises, according to Amedi, is how our brains are\nable to adapt so readily to such sudden changes \u2013 an issue Amedi refers to as a\n\u201creal estate problem\u201d in the brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHow can the brain, in the slow evolutionary\nprocess, adapt to more and more information, more and more technologies?\u201d he\nasked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One theory posits that parts of the brain get\nrecycled to deal with cognitive tasks it has not previously confronted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A parallel invention of Amedi\u2019s lab is an\nauditory process that allows blind people to \u201csee\u201d with their brain. Sight is\nreally a function of the brain, not the eyes, he said. The eyes are the\nconduit, but the brain does the cognitive work of seeing. Bypassing the\nnon-functional eyes and going through the ears directly to the part of the\nbrain where sight is computed, Amedi and his team have been able to create a\ncomplex musical language that allows blind people to absorb immense amounts of\ninformation about the environment around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a demonstration, Amedi walked the audience\nthrough the first lesson users of the technology are taught. Simple sounds \u2013\nsimilar to Morse code \u2013 represent lines. A musical scale going up or down\nrepresents stairs. A smile is depicted by a falling then rising tone. Pitch is\nadded to determine height. Timbre is introduced to depict different colours. In\na remarkably short time, blind people are able to ascertain immense awareness\nof their visual environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Significantly, Amedi added, brain imaging\nindicates that the part of the brain processing the information is identical,\nwhether a sighted person is looking at something with their eyes or a blind\nperson is \u201clooking\u201d at something using the auditory sensory-substitution\nprocess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">More information about Amedi\u2019s work is online at <a href=\"http:\/\/brain.huji.ac.il\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"brain.huji.ac.il (opens in a new tab)\">brain.huji.ac.il<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prof. Amir Amedi of the Hebrew University answers questions from attendees at a Jan. 16 presentation. (photo by Pat Johnson) A white cane has been used for generations to help guide the mobility of people who are blind. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem created the EyeCane, which added technology that indicates to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8658,8657,1834,2225,1881,8660],"class_list":["post-31737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-amir-amedi","tag-eyecane","tag-hebrew-university","tag-science","tag-technology","tag-visual-aids"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}