If you are a blind child in India, you will very likely have to contend with at least two big pieces of bad news. The first bad news is that the chances of getting treatment are extremely slim to none, and that's because most of the blindness alleviation programs in the country are focused on adults, and there are very, very few hospitals that are actually equipped to treat children. In fact, if you were to be treated, you might well end up being treated by a person who has no medical credentials as this case from Rajasthan illustrates. This is a three-year-old orphan girl who had cataracts. So, her caretakers took her to the village medicine man, and instead of suggesting to the caretakers that the girl be taken to a hospital, the person decided to burn her abdomen with red-hot iron bars to drive out the demons. The second piece of bad news will be delivered to you by neuroscientists, who will tell you that if you are older than four or five years of age, that even if you have your eye corrected, the chances of your brain learning how to see are very, very slim -- again, slim or none.
Ako ste slijepo dijete u Indiji, vjerojatno ćete se morati suočiti s barem dvije loše vijesti. Prva loša vijest je da su vam šanse da dobijete liječenje vrlo male do nikakve, a to je zato što se većina programa za ublažavanje sljepoće u zemlji fokusira na odrasle i vrlo je malo bolnica koje su opremljene za liječenje djece. U biti, ako i jeste liječeni, vjerojatno će vas liječiti osoba koja nema medicinske kvalifikacije kao što to ilustrira ovaj slučaj iz Rajasthana. Ovo je trogodišnja djevojčica siroče koja je imala kataraktu. Njezini skrbnici su je odveli seoskom vraču i umjesto da je savjetovao skrbnike da djevojčicu odvedu u bolnicu, spalio joj je abdomen užarenim šipkama kako bi istjerao demone. Drugu lošu vijest predočit će vam neuroznanstvenici koji će vam reći da ako ste stariji od 4 ili 5 godina i čak ako vam je vid vraćen, šanse da vaš mozak nauči vidjeti su vrlo, vrlo male. Opet, male do nikakve.
So when I heard these two things, it troubled me deeply, both because of personal reasons and scientific reasons. So let me first start with the personal reason. It'll sound corny, but it's sincere. That's my son, Darius. As a new father, I have a qualitatively different sense of just how delicate babies are, what our obligations are towards them and how much love we can feel towards a child. I would move heaven and earth in order to get treatment for Darius, and for me to be told that there might be other Dariuses who are not getting treatment, that's just viscerally wrong. So that's the personal reason.
Zato, kada sam čuo ove dvije stvari, duboko su me zabrinule zbog osobnih i znanstvenih razloga. Započet ću s osobnim razlogom. Zvučat će otrcano, ali je iskreno. Ovo je moj sin Darius. Kao novi otac, imam kvalitativno drugačiji osjet o tome kako su djeca osjetljiva, o našim obavezama prema njima i koliko ljubavi možemo osjećati prema djetetu. Pomaknuo bih nebo i zemlju u svrhu liječenja Dariusa. I za mene je to, da mi netko kaže da ondje može biti još jedan Darius koji ne može dobiti liječenje, to je neprihvatljivo i pogrešno. Dakle, to je osobni razlog.
Scientific reason is that this notion from neuroscience of critical periods -- that if the brain is older than four or five years of age, it loses its ability to learn -- that doesn't sit well with me, because I don't think that idea has been tested adequately. The birth of the idea is from David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel's work, two researchers who were at Harvard, and they got the Nobel Prize in 1981 for their studies of visual physiology, which are remarkably beautiful studies, but I believe some of their work has been extrapolated into the human domain prematurely. So, they did their work with kittens, with different kinds of deprivation regiments, and those studies, which date back to the '60s, are now being applied to human children.
Znanstveni razlog je ta konstatacija neuroznanosti o kritičnom periodu ako je mozak stariji od 4 ili 5 godina da gubi sposobnost učenja, s time se ne slažem jer mislim da ta teorija nije adekvatno testirana. Ideja potiče iz rada Davida Hubela i Torstena Wiesela, dva istraživača s Harvarda, dobili su Nobelovu nagradu 1981.g. za istraživanja vizualne psihologije, zapanjujuće prelijepa istraživanja, ali mislim da su neki od njihovih radova prerano primijenjeni na ljudsku domenu. Radili su s mačkama s različitim nedostatcima ili poremećajima, i sada se te studije koje sežu još od šezdesetih primjenjuju i na ljudsku djecu.
So I felt that I needed to do two things. One: provide care to children who are currently being deprived of treatment. That's the humanitarian mission. And the scientific mission would be to test the limits of visual plasticity. And these two missions, as you can tell, thread together perfectly. One adds to the other; in fact, one would be impossible without the other. So, to implement these twin missions, a few years ago, I launched Project Prakash. Prakash, as many of you know, is the Sanskrit word for light, and the idea is that in bringing light into the lives of children, we also have a chance of shedding light on some of the deepest mysteries of neuroscience. And the logo -- even though it looks extremely Irish, it's actually derived from the Indian symbol of Diya, an earthen lamp. The Prakash, the overall effort has three components: outreach, to identify children in need of care; medical treatment; and in subsequent study. And I want to show you a short video clip that illustrates the first two components of this work.
Osjećao sam da trebam učiniti dvije stvari. Prvo: pobrinuti se za njegu djece koja su trenutno lišena medicinskog tretmana. To je humanitarna misija. A znanstvena misija bila bi testirati granice vizualne plastičnosti mozga. Te se dvije misije, kao što možete vidjeti, savršeno isprepliću, jedna nadopunjuje drugu. U biti, jedna ne bi bila moguća bez druge. Stoga, kako bih ostvario ove dvije misije, prije par godina pokrenuo sam projekt Prakash. Prakash, kao što mnogi od vas već znaju, riječ je iz Sanskrta, a znači svijetlo, a sama ideja je da donese svijetlo u živote djece, a mi također imamo priliku rasvijetliti neke od najdubljih tajni neuroznanosti. A logo, iako izgleda kao irski, zapravo dolazi od indijskog simbola Diya, zemaljana svjetiljka. Prakash, cjelovit trud ima tri komponente, identificirati djecu za potrebu njege, medicinskog tretmana i kasnijeg istraživanja. Želim vam pokazati kratak video isječak koji ilustrira prve dvije komponente ovog rada.
This is an outreach station conducted at a school for the blind.
Ovo je terenska aktivnost provođena u školi za slijepe.
(Text: Most of the children are profoundly and permanently blind ...)
(Tekst: Većina djece je duboko i trajno slijepa...)
Pawan Sinha: So, because this is a school for the blind, many children have permanent conditions. That's a case of microphthalmos, which is malformed eyes, and that's a permanent condition; it cannot be treated. That's an extreme of micropthalmos called enophthalmos. But, every so often, we come across children who show some residual vision, and that is a very good sign that the condition might actually be treatable. So, after that screening, we bring the children to the hospital. That's the hospital we're working with in Delhi, the Schroff Charity Eye Hospital. It has a very well-equipped pediatric ophthalmic center, which was made possible in part by a gift from the Ronald McDonald charity. So, eating burgers actually helps.
Budući da je to škola za slijepe, mnoga djeca imaju trajna stanja. To je slučaj s microftalmusom, što su iskrivljene oči i to je trajno stanje. Ne može se liječiti. To se kao i ekstremni microftalmus naziva enoftalmus. Ali svako malo nailazimo na djecu koja pokazuju znakove rezidualnog vida, a to je jako dobar znak da takvo stanje može biti lječivo. Nakon pregleda djecu šaljemo u bolnicu. Ovo je bolnica s kojom radimo u Delhiju, Schroff Charity Eye Hospital. Imaju jako dobro opremljen pedijatrijski oftalmološki centar, što je omogućeno darom zaklade Ronalda McDonalda. Dakle, jedenje hamburgera zapravo pomaže.
(Text: Such examinations allow us to improve eye-health in many children, and ... ... help us find children who can participate in Project Prakash.)
(Tekst: Takvi pregledi nam omogućuju da poboljšamo zdravlje očiju kod mnoge djece i pomogne nam da pronađemo djecu koja će sudjelovati u projektu Prakash.)
PS: So, as I zoom in to the eyes of this child, you will see the cause of his blindness. The whites that you see in the middle of his pupils are congenital cataracts, so opacities of the lens. In our eyes, the lens is clear, but in this child, the lens has become opaque, and therefore he can't see the world. So, the child is given treatment. You'll see shots of the eye. Here's the eye with the opaque lens, the opaque lens extracted and an acrylic lens inserted. And here's the same child three weeks post-operation, with the right eye open.
Kad približim oči djeteta, vidjet ćete uzrok njegove sljepoće. Bjelinu koju možete vidjeti na sredini njegovih zjenica su kongenitalne (urođene) katarakte, dakle zamućenje leće. U našim očima leća je čista, ali u očima ovog djeteta leća je postala neprozirna i zato ono ne može vidjeti svijet. Stoga je djetetu pruženo liječenje. Vidjet ćete slike oka. Ovdje je oko s neprozirnom lećom, izvađena neprozirna leća i umetnuta umjetna, akrilna leća. A ovdje je isto dijete tri tjedna nakon operacije s otvorenim desnim okom.
(Applause)
(pljesak)
Thank you.
Hvala.
So, even from that little clip, you can begin to get the sense that recovery is possible, and we have now provided treatment to over 200 children, and the story repeats itself. After treatment, the child gains significant functionality. In fact, the story holds true even if you have a person who got sight after several years of deprivation. We did a paper a few years ago about this woman that you see on the right, SRD, and she got her sight late in life, and her vision is remarkable at this age. I should add a tragic postscript to this -- she died two years ago in a bus accident. So, hers is just a truly inspiring story -- unknown, but inspiring story. So when we started finding these results, as you might imagine, it created quite a bit of stir in the scientific and the popular press. Here's an article in Nature that profiled this work, and another one in Time. So, we were fairly convinced -- we are convinced -- that recovery is feasible, despite extended visual deprivation.
Čak i iz ovog malog isječka počinjete dobivati osjećaj da je oporavak moguć, a primijenili smo tretman na više od 200 djece i priča se ponavlja. Nakon liječenja dijete ima značajnu vidnu funkcionalnost. U biti, priča je istinita čak ako imate osobu kojoj se povratio vid nakon nekoliko godina od gubitka. Napravili smo članak prije nekoliko godina o ženi koju vidite s desna, SRD, vratio joj se vid kasnije u životu i sada je izvanredan za tu dob. Nažalost moram dodati tragični komentar da je poginula prije dvije godine u autobusnoj nesreći. Njezina priča je istinita i nadahnjuje, nepoznata, ali nadahnjujuća priča. Kada smo počeli dobivati ove rezultate, kao što možete zamisliti, to je stvorilo prilično veliku pomutnju u znanstvenom i popularnom tisku. Ovo je članak iz Nature-a koji je objavio ovaj rad, i još jedan u Time-u. Mi smo bili uvjereni, sada smo uvjereni da je oporavak moguć unatoč opsežnom gubitku vida.
The next obvious question to ask: What is the process of recovery? So, the way we study that is, let's say we find a child who has light sensitivity. The child is provided treatment, and I want to stress that the treatment is completely unconditional; there is no quid pro quo. We treat many more children then we actually work with. Every child who needs treatment is treated. After treatment, about every week, we run the child on a battery of simple visual tests in order to see how their visual skills are coming on line. And we try to do this for as long as possible. This arc of development gives us unprecedented and extremely valuable information about how the scaffolding of vision gets set up. What might be the causal connections between the early developing skills and the later developing ones?
Sljedeće očigledno pitanje bilo bi: Kakav je proces oporavka? Proučavamo to ovako, recimo da nađemo dijete koje pokazuje osjetljivost na svjetlost. Djetetu je pružen tretman i želim naglasiti da je tretman potpuno bezuvjetan. Nije quid pro quo ("ti meni, ja tebi"). Liječimo mnogo više djece od onih s kojima zapravo radimo. Svako dijete koje treba liječenje je liječeno. Nakon tretmana, otprilike svaki tjedan, testiramo dijete jednostavnim vizualnim testovima kako bismo pratili napredovanje njegovih vještina. I pokušavamo to raditi što je duže moguće. Ovaj luk razvoja daje nam vrlo vrijedne informacije o tome kako se uspostavlja kostur vida. Što može biti uzročna veza između ranog i kasnog razvoja vještina?
And we've used this general approach to study many different visual proficiencies, but I want to highlight one particular one, and that is image parsing into objects. So, any image of the kind that you see on the left, be it a real image or a synthetic image, it's made up of little regions that you see in the middle column, regions of different colors, different luminances. The brain has this complex task of putting together, integrating, subsets of these regions into something that's more meaningful, into what we would consider to be objects, as you see on the right. And nobody knows how this integration happens, and that's the question we asked with Project Prakash.
Koristili smo ovaj opći pristup kako bismo proučili mnogo različitih vizualnih prepoznavanja, ali želim istaknuti jedan određeni, a to je sastavljanje slika u objekte. Svaka slika koju vidite s lijeva, bila ona prava ili sintetička, sastavljena je od malih regija koje vidite na srednjoj slici, regije različitih boja i osvjetljenja. Mozak ima taj složeni zadatak da sastavi zajedno, integrira podjedinice tih regija u nešto što ima značenje, u nešto što ćemo smatrati objektom, kao što vidite s desna. I nitko ne zna kako se ta integracija odvija. A to je pitanje koje pitamo projektom Prakash.
So, here's what happens very soon after the onset of sight. Here's a person who had gained sight just a couple of weeks ago, and you see Ethan Myers, a graduate student from MIT, running the experiment with him. His visual-motor coordination is quite poor, but you get a general sense of what are the regions that he's trying to trace out. If you show him real world images, if you show others like him real world images, they are unable to recognize most of the objects because the world to them is over-fragmented; it's made up of a collage, a patchwork, of regions of different colors and luminances. And that's what's indicated in the green outlines. When you ask them, "Even if you can't name the objects, just point to where the objects are," these are the regions that they point to. So the world is this complex patchwork of regions. Even the shadow on the ball becomes its own object. Interestingly enough, you give them a few months, and this is what happens.
Dakle, evo što se dogodi ubrzo nakon početka gledanja. Ovdje je osoba kojoj se vratio vid prije par tjedana, i vidite Ethana Myersa, diplomiranog studenta MIT-a, kako izvodi pokus s njom. Njegova vizualna motorička koordinacija je siromašna, ali dobijete općeniti osjećaj o regijama koje ona pokušava pratiti. Ako mu pokažete stvarne slike, ako drugima kao što je on pokažete stvarne slike, oni nisu u mogućnosti prepoznati većinu objekata jer je njima slika previše fragmentirana, kao da je napravljena od kolaža, niz zakrpa, regija s drukčijim bojama i osvjetljenjem. To je ovo što pokazuju zelene linije. Ako ih pitate da pokažu gdje su objekti iako ih ne mogu imenovati, ovo su regije koje oni pokazuju. Dakle svijet je veliki kompleks zakrpa, regija. Čak i sjena lopte postaje vlastiti objekt. Zanimljivo, date im par mjeseci i ovo se dogodi.
Doctor: How many are these?
Doktor: Koliko je ovo?
Patient: These are two things.
Pacijent: To su dvije stvari.
Doctor: What are their shapes?
Doktor: Koji su njihovi oblici?
Patient: Their shapes ... This one is a circle, and this is a square.
Pacijent: Njihovi oblici… Ovo je krug, a ovo je kvadrat.
PS: A very dramatic transformation has come about. And the question is: What underlies this transformation? It's a profound question, and what's even more amazing is how simple the answer is. The answer lies in motion and that's what I want to show you in the next clip.
PS: Pojavit će se vrlo dramatična transformacija. A pitanje je: Na čemu počiva ta transformacija? To je vrlo duboko pitanje, a iznenađujuće je to što je odgovor vrlo jednostavan. Odgovor leži u pokretu i to ću vam prikazati u sljedećem isječku.
Doctor: What shape do you see here?
Doktor: Koji oblik vidite ovdje?
Patient: I can't make it out.
Pacijent: Ne mogu razaznati.
Doctor: Now?
Doktor: Sada?
Patient: Triangle.
Pacijent: Trokut.
Doctor: How many things are these? Now, how many things are these?
Doktor: Koliko je to stvari? Sad, koliko je to stvari?
Patient: Two.
Pacijent: Dvije.
Doctor: What are these things?
Doktor: Koje su to stvari?
Patient: A square and a circle.
Pacijent: Kvadrat i krug.
PS: And we see this pattern over and over again. The one thing the visual system needs in order to begin parsing the world is dynamic information. So the inference we are deriving from this, and several such experiments, is that dynamic information processing, or motion processing, serves as the bedrock for building the rest of the complexity of visual processing; it leads to visual integration and eventually to recognition.
PS: Ovakav razvoj kod pacijenta vidimo uvijek iznova. Jedna stvar koju vizualni sustav treba kako bi počeo raščlanjivati sliku o svijetu je dinamična informacija. Dakle zaključak koji iznosimo iz ovoga, i još nekoliko ovakvih pokusa -- procesiranje dinamične informacije ili procesiranje pokreta, služi kao temelj za izgradnju ostatka kompleksa vizualnog procesiranja. To vodi do vizualne integracije i na kraju do prepoznavanja.
This simple idea has far reaching implications. And let me just quickly mention two, one, drawing from the domain of engineering, and one from the clinic. So, from the perspective of engineering, we can ask: Goven that we know that motion is so important for the human visual system, can we use this as a recipe for constructing machine-based vision systems that can learn on their own, that don't need to be programmed by a human programmer? And that's what we're trying to do.
Ova jednostavna ideja ima dalekosežnu posljedicu. Dopustite da na brzinu spomenem dva. Jedan s područja inženjerstva, a drugi s područja klinike. Dakle, iz perspektive inženjerstva, možemo pitati, znajući da je pokret vrlo bitan za vizualni sustav čovjeka, možemo li uzeti to kao recept za izgradnju vizualnog sustava kod strojeva koji samostalno uče, koje onda ne mora čovjek programirati. To je ono što pokušavamo napraviti.
I'm at MIT, at MIT you need to apply whatever basic knowledge you gain. So we are creating Dylan, which is a computational system with an ambitious goal of taking in visual inputs of the same kind that a human child would receive, and autonomously discovering: What are the objects in this visual input? So, don't worry about the internals of Dylan. Here, I'm just going to talk about how we test Dylan. The way we test Dylan is by giving it inputs, as I said, of the same kind that a baby, or a child in Project Prakash would get. But for a long time we couldn't quite figure out: Wow can we get these kinds of video inputs? So, I thought, could we have Darius serve as our babycam carrier, and that way get the inputs that we feed into Dylan? So that's what we did. (Laughter) I had to have long conversations with my wife. (Laughter) In fact, Pam, if you're watching this, please forgive me.
Ja sam na MIT-u i ondje morate upotrebljavati svako osnovno znanje koje posjedujete. Stvaramo Dylan, računalni sustav s ambicioznim ciljem uzimanja vizualnih signala iste vrste koje bi primilo i ljudsko dijete i samostalno bi otkrivalo objekte u tom vizualnom signala. Stoga, ne brinite o unutrašnjosti Dylan. Ovdje ću samo pričati o tome kako smo Dylan testirali. Dakle testirali smo Dylan na taj način da smo joj davali signale iste vrste koje je dobila i beba ili dijete koje je sudjelovalo u projektu Prakash. No dugo vremena nismo mogli dokučiti kako dobiti te vrste video podražaja. Pa sam mislio da bi Darius mogao poslužiti u te svrhe i na taj način dobiti podražaje koje bi pohranili u Dylan. To smo i napravili. (smijeh) Imao sam dugi razgovor sa svojom ženom. (smijeh) U stvari, Pam, ako gledaš ovo, molim te oprosti.
So, we modified the optics of the camera in order to mimic the baby's visual acuity. As some of you might know, babyies are born pretty much legally blind. Their acuity -- our acuity is 20/20; babies' acuity is like 20/800, so they are looking at the world in a very, very blurry fashion. Here's what a baby-cam video looks like.
Modificirali smo optiku kamere kako bismo oponašali vizualnu oštrinu vida djeteta. Kako neki od vas možda znaju, djeca su rođena gotovo slijepa. Njihova oštrina – naša oštrina vida je 20/20 – oštrina vida beba je 20/800, tako da gledaju vrlo mutno. Ovako izgleda video s baby kamere.
(Laughter) (Applause)
(smijeh) (pljesak)
Thankfully, there isn't any audio to go with this. What's amazing is that working with such highly degraded input, the baby, very quickly, is able to discover meaning in such input. But then two or three days afterward, babies begin to pay attention to their mother's or their father's face. How does that happen? We want Dylan to be able to do that, and using this mantra of motion, Dylan actually can do that. So, given that kind of video input, with just about six or seven minutes worth of video, Dylan can begin to extract patterns that include faces. So, it's an important demonstration of the power of motion.
Srećom, ne postoji zvučni zapis koji ide uz to. Fascinantno je da bebe s tako degradiranim signalom mogu otkriti značenje tog signala. Ali tada, 2 do 3 dana kasnije, bebe počinju obraćati pozornost na lice svojih roditelja. Kako se to događa? Želimo da i Dylan to bude u stanju učiniti. I koristeći tu mantru pokreta Dylan to može učiniti. Premda mu je dana ta vrsta video signala sa samo 6 ili 7 minuta dužine video zapisa, Dylan može početi razlučivati uzorke koji uključuju lica. To je vrlo bitna demonstracija moći pokreta.
The clinical implication, it comes from the domain of autism. Visual integration has been associated with autism by several researchers. When we saw that, we asked: Could the impairment in visual integration be the manifestation of something underneath, of dynamic information processing deficiencies in autism? Because, if that hypothesis were to be true, it would have massive repercussions in our understanding of what's causing the many different aspects of the autism phenotype.
Kliničke posljedice nalazimo u domeni autizma. Vizualna integriranost je s autizmom povezalo nekoliko istraživača. Kad smo to vidjeli, pitali smo se: Je li oštećenje vizualnog povezivanja manifestacija nečega što je stvarni uzrok manjkavosti u obradbi dinamičkih informacija kod autizma? Jer ako je ta pretpostavka točna, imalo bi to velike posljedice na naše razumijevanje o tome što uzrokuje mnoge različite aspekte autizma.
What you're going to see are video clips of two children -- one neurotypical, one with autism, playing Pong. So, while the child is playing Pong, we are tracking where they're looking. In red are the eye movement traces. This is the neurotypical child, and what you see is that the child is able to make cues of the dynamic information to predict where the ball is going to go. Even before the ball gets to a place, the child is already looking there. Contrast this with a child with autism playing the same game. Instead of anticipating, the child always follows where the ball has been. The efficiency of the use of dynamic information seems to be significantly compromised in autism. So we are pursuing this line of work and hopefully we'll have more results to report soon.
Ono što ćemo vidjeti su video isječci dvoje djece, jedno neurotipično ("normalno") i jedno s autizmom, kako igraju stolni tenis. Dok igraju, pratimo kamo gledaju. Crveno označava tragove kretanja očiju, to je neurotipično dijete i kao što vidite dijete je sposobno prepoznati dinamičke informacije kako bi predvidjelo kamo će lopta ići. I prije nego što će doći dijete već gleda prema tamo. Usporedite to s djetetom s autizmom koje je igralo s njim. Umjesto predviđanja gdje će lopta biti, dijete je uvijek pratilo gdje je lopta bila. Učinkovitost korištenja dinamičke informacije značajno je umanjena autizmom. Stoga nastavljamo slijediti ovu liniju rada nadajući se da ćemo imati više rezultata za izvijestiti ubrzo.
Looking ahead, if you think of this disk as representing all of the children we've treated so far, this is the magnitude of the problem. The red dots are the children we have not treated. So, there are many, many more children who need to be treated, and in order to expand the scope of the project, we are planning on launching The Prakash Center for Children, which will have a dedicated pediatric hospital, a school for the children we are treating and also a cutting-edge research facility. The Prakash Center will integrate health care, education and research in a way that truly creates the whole to be greater than the sum of the parts.
Gledajući u budućnost, ako zamislite da ovaj krug predstavlja svu djecu koju smo do sad liječili, uvidjet ćete značaj ovog problema. Crvene točke predstavljaju djecu koju nismo liječili. Dakle, postoji još mnogo, mnogo više djece koju je potrebno liječiti, stoga da bismo proširili opseg projekta, planiramo pokrenuti Prakash Centar za Djecu, koji će sadržavati specijaliziranu dječju bolnicu, školu za djecu koja su na liječenju te također napredni istraživački odjel. Prakash Centar će objedinjavati zdravstvenu skrb, obrazovanje i istraživanje na način koji doista stvara cjelinu bolju od pukog zbroja dijelova.
So, to summarize: Prakash, in its five years of existence, it's had an impact in multiple areas, ranging from basic neuroscience plasticity and learning in the brain, to clinically relevant hypotheses like in autism, the development of autonomous machine vision systems, education of the undergraduate and graduate students, and most importantly in the alleviation of childhood blindness. And for my students and I, it's been just a phenomenal experience because we have gotten to do interesting research, while at the same time helping the many children that we have worked with.
Dakle, da sumiramo, Prakash je u svojih pet godina postojanja imao utjecaj na mnoga područja, u rasponu od neuroznanosti: osnovne neurološke plastičnosti i proučavanja mozga do klinički relevantnih hipoteza poput onih o autizmu, razvoja autonomnih uređaja sistema vida, edukacije preddiplomskih i diplomskih studenata i, što je najvažnije, smanjivanje i olakšavanje dječje sljepoće. I za moje studente i mene, to je bilo fenomenalno iskustvo jer smo imali priliku provoditi zanimljiva istraživanja, istodobno pomažući mnogoj djeci s kojima smo radili.
Thank you very much.
Puno vam hvala.
(Applause)
(pljesak)