Functional relevance of cross-modal plasticity in blind humans
Abstract
Functional imaging studies of people who were blind from an early age have revealed that their primary visual cortex can be activated by Braille reading and other tactile discrimination tasks. Other studies have also shown that visual cortical areas can be activated by somatosensory input in blind subjects but not those with sight. The significance of this cross-modal plasticity is unclear, however, as it is not known whether the visual cortex can process somatosensory information in a functionally relevant way. To address this issue, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation to disrupt the function of different cortical areas in people who were blind from an early age as they identified Braille or embossed Roman letters. Transient stimulation of the occipital (visual) cortex induced errors in both tasks and distorted the tactile perceptions of blind subjects. In contrast, occipital stimulation had no effect on tactile performance in normal-sighted subjects, whereas similar stimulation is known to disrupt their visual performance. We conclude that blindness from an early age can cause the visual cortex to be recruited to a role in somatosensory processing. We propose that this cross-modal plasticity may account in part for the superior tactile perceptual abilities of blind subjects.
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Neural disruption of visual cortex with TMS interferes with Braille reading.
“Additionally, neural disruption of visual cortex with TMS interferes with Braille reading (Cohen et al., 1997; Kupers et al., 2007).”
From Designing sensory-substitution devices: Principles, pitfalls and potential1 (2016) · cites this paper as Cohen et al., 1997
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- Authors
- Cohen, L. G., Celnik, P., Pascual-Leone, A., Corwell, B., Faiz, L., Dambrosia, J., Honda, M., Sadato, N., Gerloff, C., Catala´, M. D., & Hallett, M.
- Affiliations
- National Institutes of Health (US)
- University of Fukui (JP)
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (US)
- Corresponding author
- Cohen, Leonardo G.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 1997-09
- Volume
- 389
- Issue
- 6647
- Pages
- 180-183
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W1726527000
- Cited by
- 911
- References
- 34
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 51 · 2020: 24 · 2019: 34 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 32 · 2016: 32 · 2015: 40 · 2014: 48 · 2013: 33 · 2012: 37
- FWCI
- 17.46
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Studies
- Keywords
- cross-modal plasticity, early blindness, visual cortex, somatosensory processing, Braille reading, tactile perception, transcranial magnetic stimulation, cortical reorganization, tactile discrimination
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Blindness, Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory, Female, Humans, Magnetics, Male, Middle Aged, Neuronal Plasticity, Occipital Lobe, Reading, Sensory Aids, Touch, Visual Cortex, Visual Pathways
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