Introduction:

The title might strike you first as a total crap but hold on! This article contains real science and when you finish reading it, you will get what I mean. Hi everyone ! it's' been a while since I wrote a STEM post in English, hope you are doing fine! Sadly, Stan Lee died about two weeks ago and left us all with total sorrow and sadness, the marvelous ex-writer gave a unique taste to the Marvel world and brought happiness to the lives many of his fans (including me). Every one of us has a favorite Marvel character either from the books or the movies, for me, it's definitely Magneto, I don't know why but there is a certain vibe of strength and intelligence about him, these feelings became even stronger and sincere after I watched X-Men Apocalypse back in 2016. Today, I've decided to write about what I love and maybe you will share my passion. The majority of Marvel characters with supernatural human powers are fictional (excluding those who are rich, smart or have decent fighting abilities, Iron man for instance), but there is one superhero with super-human abilities who can really exist! I'm talking about the devil in the dark, Aka Daredevil!

Plot:

The story is about a fighting crime vigilante named Matthew Murdock, his eyes were exposed to radioactive chemicals at a young age which made him totally blind. Growing up, Matt's father was killed by gangsters which made the little man determined to learn martial arts to ensure justice and take revenge. The blindness of Matt has a bright side, all of his other senses were extremely heightened, he was able to tell when someone is lying just by listening to his heartbeat, locate objects accurately within long perimeters and even foresight possible attacks. Thanks to his master, stick, he was able to sharpen his senses, have a unique perception of his environment and develop amazing fighting abilities to beat his enemies. By day, he works as a defense attorney with his loyal friend Foggy, I advise you to read the comic books if you are more interested or watch Daredevil the TV series.

Sounds cool right ? just wait a little longer! Is that being said, which are parts that could be possible and which are the bullshit? Could this character truly exist in real life?

Neuroplasticity in a nutshell:

At the age of 20, I decided to enhance my basketball skills in order to play with the basketball team of my college, we didn't have a professional team at the time, so as long as I don't suck hard, I had a chance. Back then, I've become a huge fan of NBA but there were several problems to overcome. Basketball was very rare in my home city so I only played the game several times during my entire life, besides I didn't know the rules very well. Through the first games, shooting or dribbling the ball was very hard and it took of me a lot of my mental and physical energy but with practice, things became much easier! Why is that? what was happening inside my body?

Every action we make, every thought we process, every word we say are direct results of neural connections inside our central nervous system. The neurons connect with each other via synapses using neurotransmitters, but these connections are not entirely fixed, they change with time depending on the use (or not) of the pathway. An excessive use, for example, seen in training, is associated with increased neural connections and more sensitive synapses and the opposite stands true! long periods of inactivity weaken the pathway. This law of neurophysiology is called, neuroplasticity which refers to (and I quote):

Plasticity of the brain can be regarded as the ability to make adaptive changes related to the structure and function of the nervous system. Accordingly, neuronal plasticity can stand not only for morphological changes in brain areas, for alterations in neuronal networks including changes in neuronal connectivity as well as the generation of new neurons (neurogenesis), but also for neurobiochemical changes.

You've probably heard the term about the human brain that goes: use it or loses it, well, it's totally accurate! That's another less scientific way of saying neuroplasticity. Athletes who train regularly will definitely see an improvement in their abilities, those who don't will become less and less efficient with time. Kinetics aren't the only affected abilities, that's also true for all other cognitive skills, such as mental calculation, resolving problems, strategizing, memory etc.

During neuroplasticity, the brain undergoes many physical transformations:

• Increased vascularization in the concerned brain regions because more energy and oxygen are required
• Initiation of neurogenesis, in fact for decades we thought that this is not possible because neurons are the final stage of cell's differentiation but several studies showed that neurogenesis is actually possible.
• A Change in the conformation of neurons, emitting new dendrites and an initiation of synaptogenesis (new synapses are formed.)
• A long-term potentiation of the synapses, this phenomenon is the key factor in memory and learning new abilities. After a long excitation, the synapses become more sensitive to a possible future excitation which means that weaker stimulations will produce greater effects, this is way doing new things become easier with time. 

The mapping of the motor cortex is pretty unique, scientists drew a representative model called the cortical homunculus which represents every cortical region responsible for the movements of a specific part of the body. The hands take up the biggest surface because hand gestures are very complex and require more precision than any other part of the body. Neuroplasticity is really an incredible phenomenon, there are some individuals who can achieve complex movements using their feet such as eating, changing their clothes, making a phone call or even doing creative activities like drawing. Those individuals are generally born armless due to congenital defects or they lost their arms during an accident that happened at some point in their lives, the frequent use of their feet in daily activities changed their brain completely and the area responsible for feet movements becomes wider and more, that's neuroplasticity in action fellas! The ability to adapt...

There are countless examples of people who have to succeed in their lives despite being armless, their handicap didn't stop them from conquering the world, one of these examples is Tisha who has its own youtube channel where she teaches unarmed people how to live, check it out!

 

Blindness and the Cross-modal plasticity:

After understanding neuroplasticity, let's back to our superhero! Daredevil became blind due to radioactive chemicals, but in reality, blindness has many many causes from degenerative diseases and age diseases to infections and traumas, to make it simple we will divide them into two groups: primary causes and secondary causes. When light signals reach the eye's retina, they are transformed into electrical signals that travel via the optic nerve to the occipital lobe where they are processed.

Any lesion in the occipital lobe is a primary lesion, otherwise, it's secondary. Daredevil obviously suffers from a secondary lesion so his visual cortex is still completely functional and that's an important aspect in the equation, what will happen next? You guessed it right neuroplasticity! 

The loss of one sense means that the respective area of the brain is not currently under use, the brain tries to adapt the new situation and reorganize itself to benefit from these neurons, this phenomenon is called cross-modal plasticity (CMP). During CMP, many senses can strengthen especially the ones that are used most frequently, in blind persons those are hearing and touch  but also all of the other senses including taste, proprioception (sense of body position), nociception (pain sensation), smelling etc. CMP interests all sensory deprivations but we will only focus on visual impairment for the purpose of the post, research confirmed that blind people have sharper senses than sighted people, they could differentiate sounds better and read braille faster than normal trained individuals.

CMP was also proven more efficient in congenital types of blindness, that means blind children have greater adaptability than late blind adults mainly because of two factors:

• Neuroplasticity is more efficient during childhood
• CMP becomes greater as the time passes.

Now, Daredevil is a unique sensor, he could hear heartbeats from long distances, read papers just by feeling the ink and he have a smelling ability similar to big cats. Some of these enhanced super-human powers seem exaggerated but that doesn't mean that great improvements are not possible ! Especially giving the fact that daredevil became blind at an early age!

A very unique perception?

If someone blind asks you, what's like to see the outside world? How would you describe it? What is seeing, hearing or tasting in the first place? For me, this question is totally absurd which I cannot answer because perception can only be felt not described, besides, We don't perceive external stimuli the same way, every person is different.

One day at the hospital, we had a very unique patient named Adam, he was able to associate visual images with sounds. This is a special condition called synesthesia, according to Wikipedia it's defined as:

A perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.People who report a lifelong history of such experiences are known as synesthetes.

Synesthetes are very unique individuals, some of them are able to hear colors, see sounds or taste certain food when they touch a particular material texture, the possibilities are really endless.

Most of the time, synesthesia is a congenital disorder but it can be acquired late in life under special occasions like Head traumas, drug abuse, high levels of meditation etc. There is a big difference between synesthesia and hallucination, the two things are completely two separate things. Unlike hallucinations, synesthesia is considered a non-pathological process and it's durable which means every time you see the number 4, the color red will follow. The underlying causes of synesthesia are still unclear, most likely, there is an abnormal connection between two or more regions of the brain similar to the cross-modal neuroplasticity (example occipital cortex and primary auditory cortex), this is why blind people are more likely to experience synesthesia. Others theories take into account the nature of the neurochemistry and explain it as a lack of inhibitory neurons, anyway, I think that synesthesia is very cool! 

In life, while some of them are uncomfortable, the majority of synesthetes are satisfied in their lives and see it as a gift. In his video (see the link below), NerdSync discussed how Daredevil is actually a synesthete because the character was playing the piano and he was able to identify sounds as colors and tastes, this will give him a special advantage against many opponents!

Daredevil? let's call him Batman instead!

The human ear of a healthy adult is capable of hearing sounds with a frequency range from 20 to 20,000 hertz. That's just theoretical stuff because, in reality, it varies a lot depending on the age, ethnicity, and genetics. Below this range we talk about infrasounds, in nature, they are known to be used by elephants to communicate from long distances, they are also used in geology to predict early earthquakes. If we exceed 20K hertz, we reach ultrasounds, their most frequent use is in the medical field.

Animals like dolphins use ultrasounds to communicate in aquatic media because they are well propagated in liquids (In fact, this is why when doing an ultrasonic inspection, the examiner puts some gel on your skin first), whereas other animals like bats, use them in the dark to locate their prey. The sound is nothing more than a wave formed by compression/decompression cycles of the atmospheric particles when bats emit ultrasounds, they propagate in the atmosphere until they hit a target and bounce back right to the bats' sensitive ears. 

But what if I tell you that humans are also capable of echolocation? Do you believe me? No?

Meet Daniel Kish, the father of human echolocation, he is completely blind and he had his two eyes removed early in life due to retinoblastoma, an aggressive type of cancer. He learned how to navigate the world using his voice only, just like bats, he emits sounds using mouth and tongue clicks and perceives their bouncing, he gained the nickname real life Batman. Many studies and research have studied echolocation in humans and they came with some interesting results. They found that even normal humans can learn to echolocate, we relied too much on our eyes to navigate the world although we have hidden unused talents! Of course, because of the cross-modal plasticity, blind people will always have higher chances to excel. Scientists even studied different aspects of echolocation and they found that experienced echolocators can even tell the consistency of a given object only using their voice! The higher the frequency emitted, the higher the precision, this is what a recent study found contradicting previous beliefs, they concluded that echolocators should be trained at a young age to emit higher frequency mouth clicks (>4 KHz) in order to perfect their technique.

Daniel continued to inspire the world and established his own organization back in 2000 to teach blind people echolocation, he called it World Access for the Blind.

Watch this wonderful TED's talk for more insights about Daniel and his life...

Now daredevil clearly can navigate the world just fine, in comic books and shows, he is able to see using his own unique way, we don't know for sure what it is but it's represented as some kind of red bloody images. Furthermore, one of the most unique Daredevil powers is the radar sense, it hasn't been consistent throughout the comics but it can be resumed as the ability to foresight attacks, for example, he can feel the enemy coming behind walls. With his enhanced senses and using echolocation at a high level of perfection maybe this radar sense isn't a crap after all :p

But what about the ninja skills? The guy is blind for god sake! 

The moment I become repelled toward humans, they just keep amazing me. Lee Hoy is a certified blind MMA fighter, his retinas were damaged before birth by a parasite called toxoplasmosis, generally transmitted to the mother after a contact with cats but his handicap didn't stop him to learn MMA, as he described. He can only see shadows of color and can't discriminate faces so technically he is not completely blind, nevertheless he kept beating many opponents and won two bronze medals, what about that !

Ronald Dlamini is another inspiration for all of us, he is a living legend! He became a south African MMA champion in 2010 but unfortunately, a tragic accident happened later in his life. He lost his sight completely after being diagnosed with meningitis, but that didn't stop him either from returning to the fields, He said:

The strongest sense in humans is visual, it's very hard for you to forget something you see. Now, it's hard for me to forget something I've touched. All other senses are amplified: I smell better, I hear better. Just by touching you, I know your body weight. When I spar, I listen to the breathing. I listen to the footsteps. Ill strike where you're most vulnerable

Now tell me, this sounds like Daredevil or not? Ronald continues to love the game and wants to fulfill his dream of teaching blind people to fight across the world.

Final words:

The Daredevil character is too real that it makes me wonder what if Stan Lee was inspired by a real-life model? Let's make a small recap, shall we?

• All senses are heightened? check...
• Unique perception? check...
• Radar sense and ability to predict forthcoming attacks ? also check...
• Some real-life examples? check and check...

Its wonderful how much we can learn from one fictional superhero, in one episode of Daredevil TV series, Matt was able to hear what everybody is saying inside a giant hotel,  maybe we can't reach that level of super-human abilities but one sense deprivation is not the end of the world, our brains have this amazing adaptability, the moral of the story is that we don't really know what we are capable of ! 

Thank you for your time, stay up to date maybe the next time we will discuss how spider bites can turn you into real life spiderman! ((Well, that's the real crap ladies and gentlemen :p))

This article was originally inspired by NerdSync in his video:

How Does DAREDEVIL "See"? || Comic Misconceptions || NerdSync,

Similar articles:

The Science of Daredevil: 5 Scientific Explanations for Daredevil’s Abilities, Link

SCIENCE BEHIND THE FICTION: THE SCIENCE BEHIND DAREDEVIL AND BULLSEYE'S AMAZING, VERY REAL ABILITIES, Link

Wikipedia links:

Daredevil

Neuroplasticity

Long term potentiation

Cross modal plasticity

Synesthesia

Human echolocation

For further readings:

Eberhard Fuchs and Gabriele Flügge: Adult Neuroplasticity: More Than 40 Years of Research, Link

Front. Behav. Neurosci: Dynamic learning and memory, synaptic plasticity and neurogenesis: an update; Link

Laurent A. Renier, Irina Anurova, Anne G. De Volder, Synnöve Carlson, John VanMeter, Josef P. Rauschecker: Preserved Functional Specialization for Spatial Processing in the Middle Occipital Gyrus of the Early Blind,Page 138-148, Link

Lotfi B. Merabet & Alvaro Pascual-Leone: Neural reorganization following sensory loss: the opportunity of change, link

Michael J. Banissy Clare Jonas and Roi Cohen Kadosh: Synesthesia: an introduction, Link

Are Bats Blind? | Ask A Biologist, Link

World Access for the Blind, Link

Andrew J. Kolarik, Silvia Cirstea, Shahina Pardhan, Brian C.J. Moore: A summary of research investigating echolocation abilities of blind and sighted humans, Hearing research Pages 60-68 , Link

Lore Thaler, Melvyn A. Goodale: Echolocation in humans: an overview, Link

L. J. Norman, L. Thaler : Human Echolocation for Target Detection Is More Accurate With Emissions Containing Higher Spectral Frequencies, and This Is Explained by Echo Intensity, Link

Meet blind MMA fighter Lee Hoy who is taking on sighted opponents and beating them , Link

Meet the blind MMA fighter whose story is more Hollywood than Rocky’s, Link

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