Oliver Sacks MD- More Stories on Vision

Thanks to my friends and colleagues, Dr. Dom Maino & Len Press.  They have posted addition information regarding Oliver Sacks’ new Book, The Mind’s Eye.

The podcast below features neurologist Oliver Sacks.  Dr. Sacks tells stories of people who manage to navigate the world and communicate, despite losing what many consider indispensable senses and abilities: the power of speech, the ability to recognize faces, the sense of three-dimensional space, the ability to read, and to see. In The Mind’s Eye he considers the fundamental questions: How do we see? How do we think?

Dr. Sacks wrote the story, StereoSue, in the New Yorker which led to Dr. Susan Barry’s book, Fixing My Gaze.

Click here to listen to the interview.

Dr. Press blogs about Lilian Kallian, a prodigy pianist.  Over time, Lilian  was unable to sight read words or music on the printed page, though her ability to write words and play music by ear was preserved.  She also began to experience what Sacks describes as a right sided visual inattention and poor facial recognition.  Although an MRI was normal, a PET scan showed diminished metabolic activity in the visual cortex.  As Dr. Sacks notes, if a complex system for the recognition of visual representations must be specifically constructed by the brain, that ability can be lost through damage to the system by injury or disease, as any other acquired ability may be lost.  Click here to read the entire blog.

Another story demonstrating that Vision takes place in the brain, not the eyes!  Consider reading this new book, The Mind’s Eye.

Thanks Drs. Maino & Press!