The DOI matches its Crossref record; 48 of the 48 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Cortical activity during tactile exploration of objects in blind and sighted humans
Abstract
PURPOSE: Recent studies show evidence of multisensory representation in the functionally normal visual cortex, but this idea remains controversial. Occipital cortex activation is often claimed to be a reflection of mental visual imagery processes triggered by other modalities. However, if the occipital cortex is genuinely active during touch, this might be the basis for the massive cross-modal plasticity observed in the congenitally blind. METHODS: To address these issues, we used fMRI to compare patterns of activation evoked by a tactile object recognition (TOR) task (right or left hand) in 8 sighted and 8 congenitally blind subjects, with several other control tasks. RESULTS: TOR robustly activated object selective regions in the lateral occipital complex (LOC/LOtv) in the blind (similar to the patterns of activation found in the sighted), indicating that object identification per se (i.e. in the absence of visual imagery) is sufficient to evoke responses in the LOC/LOtv. Importantly, there was negligible occipital activation for hand movements (imitating object palpations) in the occipital cortex, in both groups. Moreover, in both groups, TOR activation in the LOC/LOtv was bilateral, regardless of the palpating hand (similar to the lack of strong visual field preference in the LOC/LOtv for viewed objects). Finally, the most prominent enhancement in TOR activation in the congenitally blind (compared to their sighted peers) was found in the posterior occipital cortex. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that visual imagery is not an obligatory condition for object activation in visual cortex. It also demonstrates the massive plasticity in visual cortex of the blind for tactile object recognition that involves both the ventral and dorsal occipital areas, probably to support the high demand for this function in the blind.
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Items 101–125 of 125
Non-optic vision: Beyond synesthesia?
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Multi-sensory processing in adults: An EEG study of latency and amplitude in the N1 and P2 peaks
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Multisensory Calibration: A Variety of Slow and Fast Brain Processes Throughout the Lifespan
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Sharma, S., Gupta, R., & Shah, R. R. (2025) · ACM SIGCAS/SIGCHI Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies (COMPASS) · doi:10.1145/3715335.3735474 · Cited by 1
Missing images: autobiographical memory in Aphantasia and blindness
McCormick, C., & Lange, S. (2025) · Frontiers in Cognition · doi:10.3389/fcogn.2025.1644533 · Cited by 1
Early visual experience influences haptic cross-sectioning ability
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“Prior studies show great variability in haptic abilities among the blind population (Alary et al., 2009; Amedi et al., 2010; Burton et al., 2004; Grant et al., 2000; Voss et al., 2016), likely indicating that the performance in spatial representation and processing may be task-related.”
InfluentialHabilitar corpos e pessoas: práticas e conhecimentos de vidas com cegueira
von der Weid, O. (2014) · Etnografica · doi:10.4000/etnografica.3803 · Cited by 1
“Um dos achados das últimas décadas foi o de que as mesmas áreas occipitais que facilitam processos visuais em pessoas videntes são recrutadas em pessoas cegas durante a codificação tátil e auditiva (Amedi et al. 2010; Cattaneo e Vecchi 2011).”
BackgroundGyrification in relation to cortical thickness in the congenitally blind
Arend, I. C., Yuen, K. S. L., Yizhar, O., Chebat, D., & Amedi, A. (2022) · Frontiers in Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnins.2022.970878 · Cited by 1
“CAT 12 allows the estimation of surface parameters by surface-based atlas maps (Amedi et al., 2010).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialHomoiōma in Dreams of Congenitally BlindPreprint
Kang, J., Bertani, R., Raheel, K., Soteriou, M., Rosenzweig, J., Valentı́n, A., Goadsby, P. J., Tahmasian, M., Moran, R., Ilić, K., et al. (2022) · Research Square · doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-1614543/v1 · Cited by 1
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Zhang, H., Song, R., Liu, R., Jiang, S., Tan, X., Luo, T., Jin, Y., Lin, H., Han, T., & Tian, F. (2026) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3772318.3790930
“In particular, tactile exploration of object shape and spatial layout re-cruits brain areas typically associated with vision, such as the lateral occipital complex (LOC)[3], which in sighted individuals is involved in visual shape recognition.”
Hypnotizability and haptics: visual recognition of unimanually explored ‘nonmeaningful’ objects
Castellani, E., Carli, G., & Santarcangelo, E. L. (2012) · Experimental Brain Research · doi:10.1007/s00221-012-3154-0
“This task is classically considered a right hemisphere task (Cohen and Levy 1986), although it relies on a large sensorimotor network spreading within and across hemispheres (Miquée et al. 2008; Amedi et al. 2010).”
BackgroundEnhanced Surface Classification from Tactile Data by Image Fusion
Khasnobish, A., Pal, M., Konar, A., et al. (2014) · doi:10.2316/p.2014.818-033
“While exploring a surface, human brain sequentially processes the spatial distribution of the irregularities in the form of images (i.e. pictorial processing) to perceive the surface, and thereby recognize the object [1-3].”
BackgroundBendali, A., Lorach, H., Djilas, M., Marre, O., Bensoman, R., Rousseau, L., Lissorgues, G., Scorsone, E., Bergonzo, P., Garrido, J. A., et al. (2013) · Biologie Aujourd hui · doi:10.1051/jbio/2013008
“Cette plasticité du système visuel des patients aveugles repose sur sa réorganisation fonctionnelle après apparition de la cécité (Amedi et al., 2010 ; Striem-Amit et al., 2012).”
BackgroundMattioni, S., Rezk, M., Battal, C., Bottini, R., Mendoza, K. E. C., Oosterhof, N. N., & Collignon, O. (2019) · eLife · doi:10.7554/elife.50732.sa2
Similarities and differences between imagery and perceptionin early and late visual cortex
Albers, A. M. (2011) · Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University)
Peter Hagoort, A. (2020) · Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature · doi:10.3410/f.737453987.793573275
Supramodal Shape Representation in the Human BrainPreprint
Xu, Y., Vignali, L., Sigismondi, F., Crepaldi, D., Bottini, R., & Collignon, O. (2022) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2022.11.22.517472
“Whenever in the above contrasts between objects and textures (e.g., Amedi et al. 2001, 2002) or between the haptic condition with objects and the hand-movement condition without objects (Amedi et al., 2010), the isolated cognitive component could be conceptual, not perceptual.”
BackgroundSensitivity to Geometric Shape Regularity Emerges Independently of Vision
Adriano, A., Sablé-Meyer, M., Ciccione, L., Zhan, M., & Dehaene, S. (2025) · Open Mind · doi:10.1162/opmi.a.39
“This finding fits with previous visual-tactile object recognition experiments documenting shared brain mechanisms subtend-ing both visual and tactile geometrical shape-information processing (Amedi et al., 2010; James et al., 2007; Lacey et al., 2009).”
感觉通道与经验剥夺对阅读神经基础的影响——来自盲文触觉阅读的证据
Peiqi, L. I., ZHANG, Y., & Mengyu, T. I. A. N. (2026) · Advances in Psychological Science · doi:10.3724/sp.j.1042.2026.0271
“…(Cohen et al., 1997; Sadato et al., 1996, 1998; Tian et al., 2023) 。当被试分别用左手和右手阅读时，与初级躯体感 觉运动皮层不同，枕叶的激活偏侧化与阅读手无关，这表明早期视觉皮层与初级躯体感觉运 动皮层的功能特征不同 (Sadato et al., 1998; Tian et al., 2023) 。早期视觉皮层在盲文阅读和触 觉形状辨别任务中激活，而在非辨别的触觉感觉任务，即手指划过同质点表面的任务中则不 激活 (Sadato et al., 1996)…”
Metadata
- Authors
- Amedi, A., Raz, N., Azulay, H., Malach, R., & Zohary, E.
- Affiliations
- Hebrew University of Jerusalem (IL)
- Weizmann Institute of Science (IL)
- Corresponding author
- Amedi, Amir
- Venue
- Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2010-04
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 143-156
- ISSN
- 0922-6028 (ISSN-L)
- 1878-3627
- OpenAlex
- W2159773361
- Cited by
- 125
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 7.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- 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 › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Keywords
- tactile object recognition, congenital blindness, cross-modal plasticity, lateral occipital complex, visual cortex, multisensory representation, visual imagery, bilateral activation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Afferent Pathways, Analysis of Variance, Blindness, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Female, Hand, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Functional Laterality, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Oxygen, Physical Stimulation, Reaction Time, Touch, Recognition, Psychology, Young Adult
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