Your Eyes are LYING! – THE CURE for Visual Snow

Visual snow is a rare brain condition which causes a static-like effect to appear over everything you see. In fact, it is very similar to the static in old televisions. The effect will be present in both eyes, taking up the entire visual field. For some people suffering from visual snow, the symptoms are relatively mild, and they are able to forget about it for periods of time, but for other people, the effects are completely impossible to ignore. Up until recently, this condition has been completely uncurable because it wasn’t even known about in scientists’ circles and thus couldn’t properly be researched. But due to recent developments and advancements in deep brain recording and stimulation, it may actually result in a cure or at the very least some kind of relief for visual snow. Welcome to this episode of AI News. Today I will show you how visual snow is perceived by those suffering from it, how it gets detected and then eventually cured. Visual snow is often accompanied by migraines and in some cases in situations, can make it nearly impossible to see properly, causing huge distress to those suffering from it. Symptoms can worsen when your eyes and brain are tired, or when you’re feeling stressed which causes a huge feedback loop where you get stressed due to your visual snow and that in turn, making it even worse. Depending on the cause of a person’s visual snow and the way their brain visual cortex is built, the symptoms can widely vary from dots or fuzziness across visual field to bright dots moving quickly and even seemingly unrelated symptoms such as night blindness, light sensitivity and images which are still present in your visual field, even when they are no longer visible in real life. There’s also a correlation with tinnitus which I will try to explain later in the video. It might also be worth checking out the video I made about it since it has a similar treatment to the one I will discuss in this video. In order to be diagnosed with the visual snow condition, your symptoms need to be constant rather than intermittent and occur for longer than three months. Many who are suffering from visual snow don’t actually know that what they’re seeing isn’t normal, especially if it’s something they’ve had since childhood. It’s only when they read or watch articles and videos online, or when talking to other people who suffer from it, that they begin to realize their vision might be affected. So what actually causes visual snow? In short, no one knows for 100% certain what causes visual snow syndrome to occur. Recently, VS has been classified as a neurological disorder of visual processing in the brain’s cortex. In most cases, a person suffering from VS will have entirely normal eye function, only with a few but rather important abnormalities being highlighted in numerous brain scans which makes this a neurological issue. Some experts believe that visual snow occurs as a result of a dysfunction of visual processing in the structure in the brain, an area which is linked to the processing of letters and encoding visual memories. Other scientists think that high exposure to screens can trigger VS, either bringing it on or making the symptoms that are already present much worse than they would be otherwise. There is also a lot of talk about whether migraines cause visual snow to occur. Studies have proven that migraine can aggravate the various symptoms of it and that it has a higher prevalence in the visual snow disorder than in the general population. In fact, 59% of people who have visual snow also suffer with migraines. The impaired vision that comes with regular migraines is temporary, involving different stages, while for visual snow suffers it is continuous. Suffering with one condition may increase your likelihood of developing the other. The most likely cause for visual snow seems to be that migraines and similar conditions attack the part of the brain that modulates sensory inputs from your eyes and ears which then makes it less effective at filtering those inputs which then results in static visuals or ringing tones in your eyes and ears. Researchers which are looking into visual snow and its causes have also begun to suspect that there may be a genetic link. Although they don’t believe that visual snow is caused by mutations in any particular gene, 10% of all sufferers have a family member with the condition too, suggesting that genetics do play a part in the development of verses. It’s possible that VS depends on both environmental and genetic factors, but research into the condition is ongoing and scientists hope to have a definitive answer soon. This brings us to the biggest question for people who suffer from visual snow. Can it be treated in, if so, how? The biggest problem in finding a cure is that no one knows exactly what causes it to occur. That is, as previously stated, partially because there’s just so many different types and reasons for visual snow. As visual snow is so rare, no large-scale studies have been carried out to assess what works for the majority of people. At this stage, medications are often prescribed based on what works for individual people, in the hope that it might have a positive effect for others too. The best bet for curing visual snow at the moment seems to be some sort of deep brain stimulation with the help of upcoming brain computer interfaces such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink or the BCI that Paradromics is going to release by 2023. The therapy called deep brain stimulation involves the implantation of electrodes in the brain. Electrodes can be described as tiny wires that can read and transmit electricity from into your brain. These are attached to a device that stimulates them with an electrical current. In a recent study, participants were given different levels of stimulation beginning five weeks after their brain surgery. Once an appropriate setting was found, they received constant stimulation for a 24-week period. The sample size was small, only five patients were tested, but the results were promising. Four of the patients experienced a reduction in their visual snow symptoms, with the fifth showing no change. Neither the surgical implantation nor deep brain stimulation produced any serious side effects, though minor symptoms such as pain and headaches were noted. It is currently unknown whether or not deep brain stimulation will end up being a widespread solution for patients with visual snow, but it’s another step in the right direction. If you are experiencing visual hallucinations or a ringing sound in your ears and looking for relief, it may be your best back. There are many things you can do to help relieve the distraction. So what is your opinion on this type of treatment and, actually, more importantly, where you aware of the existence of visual snow? If so, do you suffer from it or have you heard about it from somewhere else? The biggest problem in finding a cure and doing research on it has been the lack of funding due to it being a relatively unknown condition and I would love to see that change. So please tell us your opinion on this topic in the comments. How do you experience visual snow or do you know of someone who has it? I’d love to hear what you have to say about it. Thank you for watching AI News. We consistently report on the newest technologies that are shaping the future of our world. We’d appreciate you subscribing and watching our other videos. See you around and take care.