Soldier Sees Again Using His Tongue


A wounded Iraq soldier has been blind for three years following a grenade attack that robbed him of his sight. However, he is one of the first people to try out the revolutionary BrainPort which uses the tongue to transfer images to the brain so the user is able to distinguish objects. Having been blind for three years this latest technology is giving Craig Lundberg something he never thought he’d have again.

BrainPort works with a pair of dark glasses being placed over the patient’s eyes and a lollipop-like implement placed on their tongue and both are connected by a wire. Thus, when looking at something this stimulates the tongue with hundreds of little electrodes that are found on the lollipop apparatus. The image that the camera is viewing is then produced in electrode shocks on the tongue. Mr. Lundberg describes this sensation on the tongue rather like the bubbles of champagne popping. Once the tongue has been stimulated the tongue sends a message of visual data to the brain which then forms the images for the patient to determine. In Mr. Lundberg’s case it enabled him to distinguish the top letters of the eye testing card of an optician, and even where the walls and doorways were in a corridor.

Having been selected by the Ministry of Defence to travel to America to receive this treatment, Mr. Lundberg is now fully involved in improving BrainPort and will continue using it on a day-to-day basis to monitor the effects. Mr. Lundberg is a walking example of true heroicness as he has never let his blindness debilitate his life; he has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, run the London Marathon and so on. This positive attitude he has to his blindness allows him to be a realist as he recognises that he may never fully regain his sight again but BrainPort is a fantastic opportunity for him to see partial images again. Currently, funds for BrainPort are predominantly focused on injured war heroes, but with growing interest and funding it could become widely available for other blind people.

2nd March 2010

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