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February 26, 2016
Q. Ophthalmologists used to believe that once a blind child passed the critical age of 6-8, his or her brain would never be able to make sense of the visual world. How did Project Prakash (Sanskrit for “light”) demolish this idea?
A. Lead neuroscientist Pavon Sinha found a test “laboratory” in India with its large population of some 360,000 to 1.2 million blind children, most of whom live in poor rural area with limited access to health care, says Rhitu Chatteejee in Science magazine. In 2011 Project Prakash began to correct the cataract-ridden eyes of children like Manoj Kumar Yadav, blind from birth, who at the age of 18 — well beyond the accepted cutoff age for surgery — was implanted with synthetic lenses. When the bandages were removed, Yadav “couldn't tell people from objects, or where one thing ended and another began... But over the coming months, his brain gradually learned to interpret the signals it was receiving from his eyes, and the blurry and confusing world began to come into focus.” Now at 22, he can even ride a bicycle in a crowded market.
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