Dear RG'ers,
There is a friend of mine who had a meningioma located in mid brain. Due to increase in intracranial pressure after Cyberknife treatment she had vision loss which was told to never recover. Then she had an open surgery where the tumor was 75% resected. After ventriculoperitoneal shunt she is doing actually well neurologically. Coming to vision, she was not seeing anything until postop month 2., when she started to see little shiny dots of different colors, then came lines and more complex shapes. In 5 months she started to see contours of objects and even whole picture of something in fornt of her (but only when she was somehow got scared...). Now she has constant daily change in background colour (started 3 months ago) - one day is black and she does not see anything, another day is grey and she sees contours of objects. She sees movement, she percieves brightness changes.
Do these changes mean that her vision is recovering? What does this grey-black background change mean? Is there something she can do to accelerate the process (if it is vision recovery, of course). Maybe there are neuroscientists who have seen such patients? Are there resources to get knowledge on this matter?
Thank you, guys
Best regards
Dear Dauren:
I am afraid it is very difficult to answer positively to your question as it is a really hard one. The problem is that visual sensations and perceptions not always are induced by signals reaching our brain through our eyes and optical nerves. I am afraid the patterns you have described in your post suggest that they are more likely to be produced intrinsically by cortical networks (changes in the background, color ect.), although this by no means exclude a recovery process. Visual cortex in particular is very interesting in this regards. In fact similar experiences have been reported in congenitally blind people as well as in those who permanently lost their eyesight due to one of another reason. This condition is known as Bonnet syndrome. Below I have a link that might be of interest to you. As regards to your friend, I would recommend him to see a specialist capable of professionally assisting him to overcome his condition. My warm greetings to your friend and I really hope he will make a full recovery and wish you all the best.
Sincerely,
Saak V. Ovsepian
p.s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgOTaXhbqPQ
Dear Saak,
Thank you for your answer, now I'm watching the video you linked...
There is something stuck in my mind: if she might be not seeing actually but feel that she is seeing, how can this imaginary seeing reflect the real world objects? She really does see objects which where not present before she got blind, so it cannot be some memoration. The main point of the question was this changing background - black-grey... Do you think that she sees something (maybe some simple geometry of the world) and then brain reconstructs the missing points of the picture? Did you mean that?
Thank you again, dear Saak,
She was consulted by many specialists who kept saying that vision loss is permanent...
Dear Dauren:
When it come to the human brain, everything is possible. I have no reasons to think that your friend is not going through recovery. In opposite, based on your post, I think there is a considerable recovery taking place. My comment was more about changes of the background. I am sorry for not being very clear.
Best of luck,
Saak
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