October 19th
In last week's journal, I started my new need-to-know: What issues in the brain lead to vision loss/blurry sight? Although this broad topic question fits into many domains of HOTQs, I thought it lent itself more to the Synthesis category. Within this section, as stated in the doc, questions like, "What would happen if...?" and "Can you propose an alternative...?" are asked, which is similar to my question because I took what I learned in my October SDA, and found an "alternative" error, "what could happen if" something went wrong in the brain, not just the eyes. I never considered brain-generated eye issues, so I am trying to go in an unknown route for this next SDA.
My sub-questions also fall into categories of the HOTQs document:
1) How are light signals turned into electric signals for the brain?
My first sub-question falls under knowledge because this is something I need to know about and is a general eye-function question, solved with a quick Google search. It connects back to my main question by relating to the brain. Knowing how signals get to the brain is part of understanding how we see.
2) How does the brain work to help you see?
Knowledge - Similar to the other sub-question, this is also a knowledge-based question because I need to learn a function of something. It is straightforward to help me learn more about the brain because, as I mentioned, I never put much thought into this and, therefore, do not know much about it.
3) What causes issues in the brain?
This sub-question, again, falls under the knowledge category, as I am still familiarizing myself with the brain and its relation to vision.
I have not changed my need-to-know or sub-question because all the sub-questions relate to knowledge and expanding what I know about the brain and the overall pathway of light after it hits our cornea. The sub-questions relate to each other through the common theme of knowledge and the need to know, as they all focus on the brain.
The sub-question I will focus on is "What causes issues in the brain?" because the goal is to find what issues in the brain lead to vision problems. Knowing what causes these issues is essential to understanding them and the brain.
3 Sources I plan on using:
“Vision loss - neurological.” Better Health Channel, https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/vision-loss neurological. Accessed 26 October 2023.
Roy, Shreya. “Encoding the Photoreceptors of the Human Eye - PMC.” NCBI, 10 October 2022, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9644661/. Accessed 26 October 2023.
Woodruff, Alan. “Visual perception - Queensland Brain Institute - University of Queensland.” Queensland Brain Institute, https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain/brain-functions/visual-perception. Accessed 26 October 2023.