Language and Sensory Neural Plasticity in the Superior Temporal Cortex of the Deaf

Visual stimuli are known to activate the auditory cortex of deaf people, presenting evidence of cross-modal plasticity. However, the mechanisms underlying such plasticity are poorly understood. In this functional MRI study, we presented two types of visual stimuli, language stimuli (words, sign language, and lip-reading) and a general stimulus (checkerboard) to investigate neural reorganization in the superior temporal cortex (STC) of deaf subjects and hearing controls. We found that only in the deaf subjects, all visual stimuli activated the STC. The cross-modal activation induced by the checkerboard was mainly due to a sensory component via a feed-forward pathway from the thalamus and primary visual cortex, positively correlated with duration of deafness, indicating a consequence of pure sensory deprivation. In contrast, the STC activity evoked by language stimuli was functionally connected to both the visual cortex and the frontotemporal areas, which were highly correlated with the learning of sign language, suggesting a strong language component via a possible feedback modulation. While the sensory component exhibited specificity to features of a visual stimulus (e.g., selective to the form of words, bodies, or faces) and the language (semantic) component appeared to recruit a common frontotemporal neural network, the two components converged to the STC and caused plasticity with different multivoxel activity patterns. In summary, the present study showed plausible neural pathways for auditory reorganization and correlations of activations of the reorganized cortical areas with developmental factors and provided unique evidence towards the understanding of neural circuits involved in cross-modal plasticity.