Differential occipital responses in early- and late-blind individuals during a sound-source discrimination task
Abstract
Blind individuals do not necessarily receive more auditory stimulation than sighted individuals. However, to interact effectively with their environment, they have to rely on non-visual cues (in particular auditory) to a greater extent. Often benefiting from cerebral reorganization, they not only learn to rely more on such cues but also may process them better and, as a result, demonstrate exceptional abilities in auditory spatial tasks. Here we examine the effects of blindness on brain activity, using positron emission tomography (PET), during a sound-source discrimination task (SSDT) in both early- and late-onset blind individuals. This should not only provide an answer to the question of whether the blind manifest changes in brain activity but also allow a direct comparison of the two subgroups performing an auditory spatial task. The task was presented under two listening conditions: one binaural and one monaural. The binaural task did not show any significant behavioural differences between groups, but it demonstrated striate and extrastriate activation in the early-blind groups. A subgroup of early-blind individuals, on the other hand, performed significantly better than all the other groups during the monaural task, and these enhanced skills were correlated with elevated activity within the left dorsal extrastriate cortex. Surprisingly, activation of the right ventral visual pathway, which was significantly activated in the late-blind individuals during the monaural task, was negatively correlated with performance. This suggests the possibility that not all cross-modal plasticity is beneficial. Overall, our results not only support previous findings showing that occipital cortex of early-blind individuals is functionally engaged in spatial auditory processing but also shed light on the impact the age of onset of blindness can have on the ensuing cross-modal plasticity.
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- Authors
- Voss, P., Gougoux, F., Zatorre, R. J., Lassonde, M., & Lepore, F.
- Affiliations
- Université de Montréal (CA)
- Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (CA)
- Venue
- NeuroImage
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2008-04
- Volume
- 40
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 746-758
- ISSN
- 1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2070750644
- Cited by
- 161
- References
- 68
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 18
- FWCI
- 4.82
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- NeuroImage (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- World Health Organization
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Music Perception
- Keywords
- blindness, late-onset blindness, spatial hearing, cross-modal plasticity, occipital cortex, ventral stream, binaural listening, monaural listening, brain reorganization
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Auditory Perception, Blindness, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Neuropsychological Tests, Occipital Lobe, Age of Onset, Positron-Emission Tomography
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