[blindkid] Notes on Eye Poking

[Richard Holloway]

I think one thing it does (at lest for some) is stimulate the optic nerve in some way. I'm typically sighted but I have noticed that pressing my eyes, even in the dark can produce a bit of a visual sensation. I have always assumed that my daughter gets something akin to visual stimulation from pressing, but as she has no conscious recollection of having vision, she would not be able to relate this as producing a visual experience if I'm right. Besides, as I understand it, her brain would probably never have mapped input from her optic nerves properly to her vision center, so who knows where the information gets sent in the brain. I have also read that at least in some cases, blind people's vision centers show up as active with brain scans (even with no light perception), so that area can apparently be remapped. In that case, who knows what would happen if optic nerve information got sent to an already reassigned vision center... I would guess the answer might vary from person to person.



On May 1, 2012, at 11:28 AM, Brian Hatgelakas wrote:

> Why does it happen?  What censessations do the blind inphants get?