Fixing My Gaze

Author: Susan R. Barry
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 078674474X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
A revelatory account of the brain's capacity for change When neuroscientist Susan Barry was fifty years old, she experienced the sense of immersion in a three dimensional world for the first time. Skyscrapers on street corners appeared to loom out toward her like the bows of giant ships. Tree branches projected upward and outward, enclosing and commanding palpable volumes of space. Leaves created intricate mosaics in 3D. Barry had been cross-eyed and stereoblind since early infancy. After half a century of perceiving her surroundings as flat and compressed, on that day she saw the city of Manhattan in stereo depth for first time in her life. As a neuroscientist, she understood just how extraordinary this transformation was, not only for herself but for the scientific understanding of the human brain. Scientists have long believed that the brain is malleable only during a "critical period" in early childhood. According to this theory, Barry's brain had organized itself when she was a baby to avoid double vision - and there was no way to rewire it as an adult. But Barry found an optometrist who prescribed a little-known program of vision therapy; after intensive training, Barry was ultimately able to accomplish what other scientists and even she herself had once considered impossible. Dubbed "Stereo Sue" by renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks, Susan Barry tells her own remarkable journey and celebrates the joyous pleasure of our senses.

Coming to Our Senses

Author: Susan R. Barry
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541675169
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
A neurobiologist reexamines the personal nature of perception in this groundbreaking guide to a new model for our senses. We think of perception as a passive, mechanical process, as if our eyes are cameras and our ears microphones. But as neurobiologist Susan R. Barry argues, perception is a deeply personal act. Our environments, our relationships, and our actions shape and reshape our senses throughout our lives. This idea is no more apparent than in the cases of people who gain senses as adults. Barry tells the stories of Liam McCoy, practically blind from birth, and Zohra Damji, born deaf, in the decade following surgeries that restored their senses. As Liam and Zohra learned entirely new ways of being, Barry discovered an entirely new model of the nature of perception. Coming to Our Senses is a celebration of human resilience and a powerful reminder that, before you can really understand other people, you must first recognize that their worlds are fundamentally different from your own.

Fixing My Eyes on Jesus

Author: Anne Graham Lotz
Publisher: HarperChristian + ORM
ISBN: 0310451906
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Book Description
Fixing My Eyes on Jesus is a 365-day devotional that will encourage, uplift, renew, and challenge you on your spiritual walk. Trusted Bible teacher, bestselling author, and CEO of AnGel Ministries Anne Graham Lotz understands how easy it is to lose focus on Jesus and stray off course. The daily devotional is perfect for new believers as well as those more seasoned in the faith. Ann Graham Lotz's Fixing My Eyes on Jesus is the spiritual nourishment you crave. This devotional is perfect: For anyone looking for insightful readings to complement their prayers For gifting or personal use If you want a clear and practical devotional to read every day

The Mind's Eye

Author: Oliver Sacks
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307594556
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From “the poet laureate of medicine" (The New York Times) and the author of the classic The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat comes a fascinating exploration of the remarkable, unpredictable ways that our brains cope with the loss of sight by finding rich new forms of perception. “Elaborate and gorgeously detailed.... Again and again, Sacks invites readers to imagine their way into minds unlike their own, encouraging a radical form of empathy.” —Los Angeles Times With compassion and insight, Dr. Oliver Sacks again illuminates the mysteries of the brain by introducing us to some remarkable characters, including Pat, who remains a vivacious communicator despite the stroke that deprives her of speech, and Howard, a novelist who loses the ability to read. Sacks investigates those who can see perfectly well but are unable to recognize faces, even those of their own children. He describes totally blind people who navigate by touch and smell; and others who, ironically, become hyper-visual. Finally, he recounts his own battle with an eye tumor and the strange visual symptoms it caused. As he has done in classics like The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and Awakenings, Dr. Sacks shows us that medicine is both an art and a science, and that our ability to imagine what it is to see with another person's mind is what makes us truly human.

The Age of Insight

Author: Eric Kandel
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1400068711
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 657

Book Description
A brilliant book by Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel, The Age of Insight takes us to Vienna 1900, where leaders in science, medicine, and art began a revolution that changed forever how we think about the human mind—our conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions—and how mind and brain relate to art. At the turn of the century, Vienna was the cultural capital of Europe. Artists and scientists met in glittering salons, where they freely exchanged ideas that led to revolutionary breakthroughs in psychology, brain science, literature, and art. Kandel takes us into the world of Vienna to trace, in rich and rewarding detail, the ideas and advances made then, and their enduring influence today. The Vienna School of Medicine led the way with its realization that truth lies hidden beneath the surface. That principle infused Viennese culture and strongly influenced the other pioneers of Vienna 1900. Sigmund Freud shocked the world with his insights into how our everyday unconscious aggressive and erotic desires are repressed and disguised in symbols, dreams, and behavior. Arthur Schnitzler revealed women’s unconscious sexuality in his novels through his innovative use of the interior monologue. Gustav Klimt, Oscar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele created startlingly evocative and honest portraits that expressed unconscious lust, desire, anxiety, and the fear of death. Kandel tells the story of how these pioneers—Freud, Schnitzler, Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele—inspired by the Vienna School of Medicine, in turn influenced the founders of the Vienna School of Art History to ask pivotal questions such as What does the viewer bring to a work of art? How does the beholder respond to it? These questions prompted new and ongoing discoveries in psychology and brain biology, leading to revelations about how we see and perceive, how we think and feel, and how we respond to and create works of art. Kandel, one of the leading scientific thinkers of our time, places these five innovators in the context of today’s cutting-edge science and gives us a new understanding of the modernist art of Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele, as well as the school of thought of Freud and Schnitzler. Reinvigorating the intellectual enquiry that began in Vienna 1900, The Age of Insight is a wonderfully written, superbly researched, and beautifully illustrated book that also provides a foundation for future work in neuroscience and the humanities. It is an extraordinary book from an international leader in neuroscience and intellectual history.

Cross-eyed Optimist

Author: Robert Crockett
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781999574123
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 170

Book Description
Eye muscle surgery is the second most common operation after cataracts. In most cases it's unnecessary and ineffective-and can lead to a lifetime of trauma for children. Before considering eye surgery for yourself or your child, read this true story. After developing crossed eyes (strabismus) as an infant, Robert underwent two eye muscle operations by the age of five. He was left with two eyes that appeared straight but did not work together effectively. All his life, doctors told him he'd never see in 3D. Like the four percent of people who have a binocular vision disorder, he saw his world as "flat." Worse, he felt broken and learning disabled, enduring lifelong difficulties with reading, concentration, behavior, spatial awareness and more. Despite his vision challenges, he became a pilot, master boat builder, MBA recipient and life coach -- by first hiding his problem, then learning how to adapt to a world he couldn't see properly. At 70, he discovered vision therapy -- a non-invasive method of retraining the brain and harnessing the power of neuroplasticity to see in 3D. This is Robert's story of a lifelong struggle, and the joy of finally getting his eyes to work as a team. As an optimist, he never gave up, and now encourages others to consider vision therapy, a proven alternative to surgery.

Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole

Author: Allan H. Ropper
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 125003499X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
A Harvard neurologist’s “gripping” account of his day-to-day work that “rarely falls into jargon and always keeps the narrative lively and engaging” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Tell the doctor where it hurts—it sounds simple enough, unless the problem affects the very organ that produces awareness and generates speech. What is it like to try to heal the body when the mind is under attack? In this book, Dr. Allan H. Ropper and Brian David Burrell take us behind the scenes at Harvard Medical School’s neurology unit to show how a seasoned diagnostician faces down bizarre, life-altering afflictions. Like Alice in Wonderland, Dr. Ropper inhabits a world where absurdities abound: • A figure skater whose body has become a ticking time bomb • A salesman who drives around and around a traffic rotary, unable to get off • A college quarterback who can’t stop calling the same play • A child molester who, after falling on the ice, is left with a brain that is very much dead inside a body that is very much alive • A mother of two young girls, diagnosed with ALS, who has to decide whether a life locked inside her own head is worth living How does one begin to treat such cases, to counsel people whose lives may be changed forever? How does one train the next generation of clinicians to deal with the moral and medical aspects of brain disease? Dr. Ropper and his colleague answer these questions by taking the reader into a rarefied world where lives and minds hang in the balance. “Entertaining . . . Like an episode of the popular television series House, the book presents mysterious medical cases . . . In the hands of a lesser writer, this book might have been nothing more than a collection of colorful tales about the many ways a human brain can break down. But Dr. Ropper and Mr. Burrell manage to tell a more profound story about the value of men over machines.” —The New York Times Book Review “A captivating stroll through the concepts and realities of neurological science.” —Publishers Weekly “A must-read . . . each chapter reads like a detective story . . . This is medical writing at its best; in the tradition of Rouche, Lewis Thomas, and Oliver Sacks.” —V. S. Ramachandran, New York Times–bestselling author of The Tell-Tale Brain

Applied Concepts in Vision Therapy 2.0

Author: Leonard J. Press
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Visual training
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description

Jillian's Story

Author: Robin Benoit
Publisher: BrownBooks.ORM
ISBN: 1612548113
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 92

Book Description
The “inspiring and beautifully told” story of one mother’s determination to help her child overcome amblyopia (Susan R. Barry, PhD, author of Coming to Our Senses). Vision challenges present a real and devastating problem among children in the USA—the correlation between vision-related learning challenges and juvenile delinquency is shocking. Jillian’s Story: How Vision Therapy Changed My Daughter’s Life shares how one family triumphed over vision problems. At the age of five, Jillian Benoit was diagnosed with amblyopia, a condition in which a child is born with good vision in one eye and extremely weak vision in the other—Jillian had been legally blind in one eye since birth, and no one knew it. After receiving the diagnosis, the Benoit family embarked on a six-year journey to improve Jillian’s vision. It wasn’t until after eye patches, thick glasses, visits to doctors’ offices, and constant struggles with academics that Robin Benoit took matters into her own hands and discovered the wonders of vision therapy. A truly inspiring tale of determination, Jillian’s Story offers a deeply personal account along with life-changing information on vision therapy. “A fascinating book that should be required reading for any parent who is struggling with the challenges of a child who is a victim of medical system that is sometimes blind.” —Todd Huston, author of More Than Mountains “Jillian’s parents prove that knowledge and answers are out there if people have the endurance to find them—a true and beautiful message of faith, hope, and love.” —Carol Dean Schreiner, author of Laugh for the Health of It!

Vision Therapy for Home Study: A Complete Instructional Book to Improve Functional Visual Deficiencies

Author: Michael Goldstein Od
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781091090156
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 64

Book Description
Vision is more than the ability to see 20/20. It is comprised of eye movements, eye alignment, focusing, visual processing, and much more. When you have a vision problem beyond glasses, we call that a Functional Vision Disorder. With Vision Therapy for Home Study, Dr. Goldstein reveals therapy techniques to enhance your vision function and to treat symptoms of Functional Vision Disorders. This book contains the same techniques Dr. Goldstein has successfully treated thousands of patients in Connecticut for 20 years.