• Question: how do feel you could help a blind person?

    Asked by to Andrew, Elaine, Emma, Michael, Nancy on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Michael Kelly

      Michael Kelly answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      Hopefully my work will eventually help prevent older people from losing their sight.
      The best way to help a blind person might be to ask if they would like some help, and if they say yes ask how you can help them.

      Often blind people need help across a road, and the best way to lead a blind person is to let them follow you by putting their hand on your arm or shoulder.

    • Photo: Nancy Carlisle

      Nancy Carlisle answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      My work doesn’t directly help people who are blind. But it is interesting that in people who are blind, the occipital lobe (the area of the brain that typically processes visual information) has been shown to respond to other sensory information. Our brain can change the way it responds to information in order to be best prepared for the situations we typically encounter. This type of brain ‘plasticity’ is also why people who play a musical instrument like a violin actually devote a larger portion of their brain to representing the left hand (the hand that has to move alot to make all the different notes). It’s cool to think about our brain changing based on our experience (in fact, that is that basis of learning- what you’re doing right now!). 🙂

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