Importance of Sight

Serena Cuoghi
Title of Professor of Biology

When talking about the senses of perception, the eye always jumps out first among the comments, and with very justifiable reason, since this fabulous skill developed in perfect coordination between the brain and the eyes, allows the capture of an innumerable quantity of phenomena both near and at great distances, above any other sense. Sight is not an exclusive sense of humans, there is an infinity of animal species that also enjoy the great benefits of having organs destined for the perception of image and space, although with visual experiences as different as their evolutionary need has given them. permitted.

The capture of light by means of the eyes -simple or complex- of some and ocelli of others, or even of both structures as it is for the spiders, has been an evolutionary process developed in parallel with the neurological ability to transmit and translate that information, potentially present in almost all corners of the planet, so much so that in the deepest depths of the sea, where darkness reigns, marine species discovered until now, are devoid of this important sense and their organs, since, even having them, they could not see anything due to the lack of light.

much more to see

The view, however, is not only a detection of lights outside the individual, but actually involves much more complex information processing, assumed by means of the reading that the brain is capable of doing on light, managing to translate at the same time the depth and distance of the objects, as well as their own three-dimensional nature and movement, through a whole machinery of nervous impulses between the organs of sight, the optic nerves and the brain, that allow observing the external reality in the most convenient way according to the animal species and its own life habits, as well as the environment in which it has evolved.

the world in the dark

Unfortunately, for many, sight is a privilege that they may not have, for many reasons, from anomalies produced both in the brain and in the eyes or optic nerves, whether due to genetic or accidental causes, from before birth or throughout their lives, depriving them of the ability to see.

In the case of other animals, living in nature represents a whole world of risk by itself, drastically reducing the possibility of survival for a individual that requires sight among their biological resources, while for humans history has been unfolding in a different way, having even achieved develop special teaching-learning mechanisms for blind people, as well as more and more strategies and resources that allow them to lead full lives, productive and satisfactory, through their social inclusion and the overstimulation that the other senses have as a consequence of the lack of the most important of all the senses.

The relevance of sight for humans has made it part of the essential areas of health for centuries, with its own professional specialties. oriented towards the detection, diagnosis and treatment of the multiple affections of the sight and its organs, fields that remain in permanent study and progress towards the development of increasingly better results, where even robotics and artificial intelligence are beginning to provide new contributions and hopes.

Look at the new problems

As we have already commented, sight is a sense that has a strong and inseparable link with light, a relationship that to the astonishment of many is just beginning. to be studied with scientific depth, as a consequence of the growing concern aroused by the use of all the technological artifacts of those that we now use on a daily basis, subjecting both the eyes and the brain to excessive exposure to non-natural light sources, neither in composition nor in intensity, and whose potential risks must be revealed and disseminated as soon as possible in order to avoid future consequences that to regret.

LED screens and lights have conquered the human world with their blue light, and the alterations it has on the visual ability of this blue light have soon made themselves felt. relatively new way of illuminating our lives, keeping in mind the importance of sight and health care and directing new research towards the analysis of the effects that the various spectra that make up light have on the structures involved that make it possible to have sight as an organic sense.

References

Molina, v. g. (2017). Blue Light: from scientific evidence to patient care. Clinic, 96. Magazine: Points de Vue – International Review of Ophthalmic Optics online publication – March 2017. France.

Sanchez, K. c. (1999). Between seeing and being seen: the symbolism of the eye. Journal of Philology and Linguistics of the University of Costa Rica, 25(2), 233-248.

Vital-Durand, F. The baby's eye and light: where does sight protection begin? Points de Vue Magazine – number 71 – Fall 2014. France.