#designandtechnologytopic

[robyngillies-blog]

brain plasticity

Last night I watched the second episode of the BBC’s Incredible Medicine: Dr Weston's Casebook series. It’s only episode 2 and I’m already hooked, last week featured the stories a young 7 year-old girl who’s heart was on the outside of her ribcage instead of the inside, and a man who’s body couldn’t store a single gram of fat. This week showcased the only human on earth to have been cured of HIV; I didn’t even know that had happened, and I’m not sure how I didn’t know. What I found most incredible was the story of a 28 year old girl, Casey, who at the age of 3 years old, started to suffer from seizures that cause one side of her entire body would become paralysed causing her to collapse. It got to the point that Casey began to have fits nearly every 3 minutes and her parents had to be next to her in order to hold her up. The doctors worked out that it was a condition known as Rasmussen's encephalitis; a rare illness that causes chronic inflammation of the brain, most commonly occurring in only one hemisphere of the brain. Her neurologists concluded that the only possible way to treat the condition was to remove the half of the brain that was effected.  By removing the right-hand side of the brain it was hoped that the left hand side would compensate and take over it’s functions. 

This phenomena is known as brain plasticity, the brain’s ability to adapt, organise and change its’ function. Because of the young age that Casey was diagnosed at, (because of the early stages of development,it is thought the brain is in it’s most plastic state when we are children) her brain was able to alter it’s ability and adapt to compensate for the missing half. 

It is incredible that the human body can adapt to losing half of it’s most important organ in such a way that Casey can survive and function completely normally while having full control over her entire body. 

All the while we are adding to out lives, creating new ways to experience and replace our natural bodies, we are able to exist with much less than we think we need. This is all down to the remarkable and unknown abilities of the human body.

[robyngillies-blog]

deuteranomaly and protanomaly

terms used for people who suffer from red-green colourblindess and have trouble distinguishing between reds, greens, browns and oranges. They also commonly confuse different types of blue and purple hues.

I had friends at school that used glasses that created a tint to their vision helping them to read whilst having dyslexia. Apparently the use of a different colour of paper/text could increase some people’s ability to read more easily. It’s quite incredible that colour can have such a big effect on, not just your appreciation and understanding of the world around, you but can also benefit the way you learn and even allow you to read easier than a monochrome page. The thought of a life without colour makes me incredibly sad. When I was younger I used to think that the world used to be black and white. I hated when it was a grey day, I would look at old family photo albums filled with black and white photos of grandparents, and even parents, and I used to get sad thinking that they had to live in such a grey world.

The two types of light-sensitive cell within the retina that process colour are called the rods and cones, the rods work in low-light condition, such as at night time, whereas cones work in the daytime in high level light conditions. There are three types of cone cells, each having a different sensitivity to wavelengths of light; one perceives blue light, an other red light, and the last green light.Your brain then interprets the signals from the cones cells so that you can see the colour of the object. The red, green and blue cones all work together allowing you to see the whole spectrum of colours. The exact physical reasons behind colour blindness are still being researched but it is believe to be caused by faulty rods and cones.

I found these really funky glasses that have lenses which alleviate colour blindness, by enhancing colours but without compromising colour accuracy. EnChroma lenses solve the problem by the use of an optimal filter that targets specific photopigments, using some protected/patented method they are able to filter and cut out and sharp wavelengths of light allowing the enhancement of specific colours. They do this by separating the overlapping red and green cones, improving the difference in these colours for people who struggle to differentiate. Literally incredible. The technology for this was created and designed through research into the genetics behind colour blindness along and looking into various anomalies related to photopigments. Seeing, and seeing in colour, is something I totally take for granted on a daily basis. Colour blindness is something most sufferers are born with, imagine being gifted with something like being able to see colour.

more @ http://enchroma.com/

[robyngillies-blog]

I’ve been struggling with some back pain for the past couple months, all stemming from joints in my spine I didn’t even know existed. A passing conversation with my physiotherapist sparked a surprising thought in my brain. She was sure to tell me that my pain shouldn’t last, ‘that the human body has it’s own way of heeling itself’. And it really is remarkable, the way people bounce back from severe illness, injury, mental and physical problems. Yes, science, medicine and medical/physical help provides a platform or handicap in healing, but the human body reacts to these benefits and the results can be incredible. How can such a complicated and intricate system that can so easily be upset and messed with return to be fully functioning with out too much encouragement, if any?!

Our spines aren’t designed to take the weight of our entire upper body vertically. The are supposed to take the weight as if we walked on all fours, to share our body weight through both our legs and our arms and have the weight distributed respectively through them all. Yet here we are, cutting about on two feet with arms that wouldn’t reach the ground unless we were doubled over. 

The spine is protective, to safeguard the cerebral spinal fluid, yet it is flexible enough to allow us to curve and bend and move freely, it is stiff enough to hold us upright with strength but also allows us to lie flat comfortably with just the right amount of give to make minor or major adjustments, a slight S-shape to allow the tension and forces to be balanced out down it. If I was tasked with the brief to design something with all these properties at once, I’m not sure I’d know where to begin: with so many constraints it’s hard to tell which aspect defines it the most: material, form, etc. 

The spine is just one small part of, what I believe is one of world’s greatest designs, the human body. There have been so many attempts (a lot of them being very successful) to replace and enhance parts of the human body, and related world, through design. I plan to explore this world a little more, looking at the science behind how our experience on earth, as human beings, can be enhanced and extended in so many ways.