#retinituspigmentosa — Public Fediverse posts

Went to the Vista Center for Blind and Visually Impaired in Santa Cruz today. It was for a combination of personal and professional reasons: (1) I'm blind / low-vision and need local resources and community, and (2) I'm looking for local business connections for my new accessibility nonprofit, Brain Computer Enterprises, Cooperative Inc. ( @bce ). It was a very helpful and productive first visit on both fronts!

#blind #a11y #accessible #lowvision #vistacenter #visuallyimpaired #retinituspigmentosa #rp #santacruz #santacruzca

@seeingwithsound

It's interesting that uses of optogenetic therapies work well with goggles that translate RGB video input to "retinal codes" that are projected in the frequency range and amplitudes appropriate for the light sensitive rhodopsins. Fascinating.

#optogenetics #blind #rp #retinituspigmentosa #goggles #vr #ar

@seeingwithsound

It's interesting that uses of optogenetic therapies work well with goggles that translate RGB video input to "retinal codes" that are projected in the frequency range and amplitudes appropriate for the light sensitive rhodopsins. Fascinating.

#optogenetics #blind #rp #retinituspigmentosa #goggles #vr #ar

@seeingwithsound

It's interesting that uses of optogenetic therapies work well with goggles that translate RGB video input to "retinal codes" that are projected in the frequency range and amplitudes appropriate for the light sensitive rhodopsins. Fascinating.

#optogenetics #blind #rp #retinituspigmentosa #goggles #vr #ar

@seeingwithsound

It's interesting that uses of optogenetic therapies work well with goggles that translate RGB video input to "retinal codes" that are projected in the frequency range and amplitudes appropriate for the light sensitive rhodopsins. Fascinating.

#optogenetics #blind #rp #retinituspigmentosa #goggles #vr #ar

@seeingwithsound

It's interesting that uses of optogenetic therapies work well with goggles that translate RGB video input to "retinal codes" that are projected in the frequency range and amplitudes appropriate for the light sensitive rhodopsins. Fascinating.

#optogenetics #blind #rp #retinituspigmentosa #goggles #vr #ar

A cure for RP (Retinitus Pigmentosa) has been shown to work with mice in the lab. Clinical trials on humans is scheduled for 2028.

https://scitechdaily.com/breakthrough-drug-restores-vision-researchers-successfully-reverse-retinal-damage/

#rp #retinituspigmentosa #blind #retina #retinaldegeneration #lowvision

Came across a 2016 book chapter on retinal neural plasticity, and it discusses specifically RP (Retinitus Pigmentosa) one of many "insults" to the retina that lead to this form of plasticity.

The loss of cones causes a cascade of rewiring resulting in the final stage in a complete change in retinal topology, which loses all typical layers.

It sounds like just having the cone inputs is enough to keep layers organized. The question is whether new inputs would enable functional rewiring...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482309/

What an amazing on-line resource!

#neuroscience #retinaldegeneration #plasticity #retinituspigmentosa #amd #retinaldisease #rp

#introduction

I fight for the users.

I love programming and thinking and talking about thinking. I have an education (BS, MS, PhD) focused on artificial intelligence and neuroscience.

I'm an advocate of the public academic pursuit of knowledge, the scientific process, peer review, and I see open source software and hardware as an essential part of the scientific process.

I see software user rights, including security and privacy, to be protected mainly by free open source software, specifically software with a copyleft license, i.e. GPL or Mozilla.

I see the democratizing effects of the Internet, including distributed journalism and social networking, to be largely the effect of the collaborative development of free and open source software.

I am interested in free and open source manufacturing, including open source 3D printers and CNC machines. I believe open source manufacturing will be important for distributed manufacturing, allowing local manufacturing and local labor.

I see worker-owned coops as the way to safely transition from a non-democratic authoritarian top-down power structure of a traditional corporation to a democratic work environment, where the workers own the company and elect the board of directors, transitioning to democracy in the workplace.

I believe that socialism is a regulatory response to capitalism.

I believe that laws, money, corporations, and government are social agreements, and I'm in favor of democratic social agreements.

I believe in the organized non-violent boycott as a way to control capitalists and change corrupt systems.

I am a pacifist. I am against violence. I am against citizens keeping guns in cities and towns with children. I am against war.

I try to eat plant-based / vegan foods to boycott the animal industry, to help with the climate crisis, to improve my health, to avoid animal cruelty, and to avoid the extinction of species of plants, animals and ecosystems.

I have been diagnosed with Retinitus Pigmentosa, which is a disease of progressive retinal degeneration. I am legally blind, although I have about 5-degrees of vision remaining in my fovea. I'm interested in researching and developing BCIs (Brain-Computer Interfaces), specifically BCIs that function as vision prostheses that may help with conditions like RP, or the more common degenerative retinal disease AMD (Age-related Macular Degeneration).

I enjoy playing computer games like Age of Empires and Rimworld. I used to program computer games when I was younger and would like to get back to it one day.

I love playing music, especially bass guitar. I've been listening to a lot of Rage Against the Machine and Enya recently.

I enjoy reading books, mostly non-fiction.

I enjoy studying religions. I've found a lot of value in Buddhism, and I meditate often daily.

Nina and I have recently had our first baby, a boy we call Tyoma.

I'm currently working at Brain Computer Enterprises, Cooperative Inc. on FOSH assistive consumer electronics.

I'm sober.

#users #fightforusers #userrights #programming #thinking #thinkingaboutthinking #ai #artificialintelligence #neuroscience #journalism #science #scientificprocess #peerreview #foss #fosh #flosh #floss #freeandopensource #freedomsoftware #libresoftware #copyleft #gpl #agpl #mozilla #license #ls #academia #privacy #security #democracy #internet #socialnetwork #distributed #cnc #3dprinting #locallabor #localmanufacturing #coop #workerowned #democracyatwork #regulation #laws #money #corporations #government #socialagreement #boycott #controlcapital #nonviolent #pacifist #antivolence #antigun #noguns #schoolshooting #antiwar #plantbased #vegan #climatecrisis #animalindustry #animalcruelty #extinction #animal #plant #ecosystem #environment #retinituspigmentosa #rp #agerelatedmaculardegeneration #amd #blind #lowvision #bci #games #computergames #ageofempires #rimworld #gamedev #music #bassguitar #rageagainstthemachine #enya #religion #reading #books #readingbooks #buddhism #baby #sober