Man’s sight restored
Published: August 25, 2003
Michael May (49) has been blind since the age of 3 when he was in a chemical explosion. In 2000 he underwent an operation where stem cells were transplanted onto the surface of his right eye. The left eye was too damaged to work with.
May is one of only a handful of people who have had their vision restored after virtually a lifetime of blindness, and the only person whose experience of returning to the visual world has been thoroughly studied. The procedure that repaired May’s vision remains relatively unusual, and only works in a small percentage of cases. But May’s unique experience is providing profound and unprecedented insights into how vision works, the flexibility of the human brain, and how people learn to interpret the world around them.
When the bandages came off he could see right away, but the way his brain interprets the images remains slightly bugged. A cube will only be recognised as a cube if it doesn’t move, for instance. Shadows and trees are hard to keep apart.
He can discern motion, two-dimensional forms and color. … What he can’t do is recognize objects in three dimensions, make sense of complex landscapes, recognize faces or interpret facial expressions.
He has seen his wife for the first times in his life but can’t recognise her. He has to guess who is who by trying to remember things like hair color and hair length.
“The first time the experience of having vision brought tears to my eyes was in a very unexpected situation. It was at a parade. I was sitting with my boys watching a parade and getting all this visual information and it sort of hit me all at once: this is amazing.”
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