Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Visual cortex activation in blind humans during sound discrimination

T Kujala1, M Huotilainen, J Sinkkonen

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Finland.

Neuroscience Letters
|January 2, 1995
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

The effect of EEG lead configuration on early TMS-EEG artifacts.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026
Same author

Language development deficits and early interactive music intervention (BusyBaby): protocol description of a double-blind randomized controlled trial on the effectiveness of music on language development in infancy.

Frontiers in psychology·2026
Same author

Atypical processing of changes in words and pseudowords in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Journal of communication disorders·2025
Same author

Whole-brain computation of cognitive versus acoustic errors in music: A mismatch negativity study.

Neuroimage. Reports·2025
Same author

Early maturation of neural auditory novelty detection - Typical development with no major effects of dyslexia risk or music intervention.

Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology·2024
Same author

Neural phoneme discrimination in variable speech in newborns - Associations with dyslexia risk and later language skills.

Brain and cognition·2023

The visual cortex in blind individuals can process auditory information. This brain region, normally for sight, shows activity during sound discrimination tasks in people blind since infancy.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Sensory processing
  • Brain plasticity

Background:

  • The visual cortex typically processes visual stimuli.
  • Early-onset blindness leads to significant alterations in brain organization and function.
  • Investigating cross-modal plasticity is crucial for understanding brain adaptation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the functional role of the visual cortex in individuals with early-onset blindness.
  • To determine if the visual cortex can be recruited for auditory processing.
  • To explore the neural basis of auditory discrimination in the blind.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized whole-scalp magnetoencephalography (MEG) with 122 planar gradiometers.
  • Recorded magnetic responses to auditory pitch changes in five congenitally blind subjects.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on two subjects to assess visual cortex macroanatomy.
  • Compared brain activity during auditory counting versus passive listening tasks.

    • Main Results:

    • In two subjects, auditory counting tasks activated both visual and temporal cortices.
    • During the same task, ignored auditory stimuli primarily activated temporal cortices.
    • Visual cortex activation during auditory discrimination was observed in a subset of the blind participants.
    • Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) confirmed normal visual cortex structure in two subjects.

    Conclusions:

    • The visual cortex in individuals blind from early infancy can be repurposed for auditory discrimination.
    • This finding provides evidence for cross-modal plasticity in the human brain.
    • Suggests that sensory deprivation can lead to functional reorganization of cortical areas.