Impaired body-centred sensorimotor transformations in congenitally deaf people

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Sensory Processing
• Human Perception

Background:

• Congenital deafness significantly alters environmental interaction and perception.
• The mechanisms by which deafness affects the internal-external world interface are not fully understood.
• Efficient interaction requires transforming visual information into body-centered sensorimotor representations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if congenital deafness impairs egocentric body-centred sensorimotor transformation.
• To explore the neural underpinnings of these potential impairments.
• To identify how brain network dynamics relate to egocentric processing in congenital deafness.

Main Methods:

• Tested egocentric judgements in individuals with congenital deafness and hearing controls.
• Utilized functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to examine frontoparietal and default-mode network activity and connectivity.
• Analyzed both task-evoked and resting-state neural activity.

Main Results:

• Congenital deafness led to significant impairments in egocentric judgements.
• These deficits stemmed from deficient body-centred sensorimotor transformation, not visual representation issues.
• Impaired performance correlated with increased connectivity between frontoparietal and default-mode networks and decreased default-mode network connectivity.

Conclusions:

• Egocentric body-centred sensorimotor transformation is impaired in congenital deafness.
• Altered inter-network and intra-network connectivity within frontoparietal and default-mode networks underlies these deficits.
• Findings reveal a neural basis for difficulties in sensory-guided movements experienced by the deaf population.