also joining me, jean bennett, steven schwartz, eberhart ofnner, and carla shatz stanford university and once again, eric kandel a nobel laureate and a howard hughes medical investigator. toegan with my friend eric give me an overview of our subject tonight. >> the last program we did was approaches to deafness. tonight we are going to consider lines miss. as is the case with deafness, blindness is not a life threatening situation but it is disabling. in some ways it is more disabling than deafness because there are a number of important conditions for which there is no treatment. now, why is that so? deafness, the sensory organ for vision, the retina, which is evident in the lower image, it lines the inside surface of the eye. oft is the most complex set organs we have. in fact, it is not a proof real organ. it is actually a part of the central nervous system. as a result, it has the complexity of the structure. it is not uniform. it has a small area that is clear which is called the macula. area of greatest visual acuity. so if i turn my head towards analyzes youra features. unfort

carla shatz is the leader in study of visual physiology and development and made wonderful works and will explain the visual system to us. my friend sandy here is amazing. he, as he pointed out, is a college undergraduate, had a severe case of glaucoma from which he became blind, and he will tell us what it's like to be blind. but the amazing thing to me about sandy is, despite the fact he has this tremendous handicap, he's a remarkable human being. he's had a rich, happy and productive life. he's invented things and now he's recently begun to think of how we can help other people who are blind to make their life er? sandy, welcome you again. great to have you at this table. >> thank you. >> charlie: talk to us about becoming blind and the whole sense of the journey for you. >> well, even after 50 years, i can still feel what it was when i went blind. for many months, i had declining vision, and my mother and i went to see a glaucoma specialist, and he examined me and then turns to me with my mo"owjrg the room and says, well, son, you're going to be blind tomorrow. i guess that was m