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Visual cortex activation in blind humans during sound discrimination

1995; Elsevier BV; Volume: 183; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/0304-3940(94)11135-6

1872-7972

Teija Kujala, Minna Huotilainen, Janne Sinkkonen, Antti Ahonen, Kimmo Alho, Matti Hämäläinen, Risto J. Ilmoniemi, M. Kajola, Jukka Knuutila, Juha Lavikainen, Oili Salonen, J. Simola, C.-G. Standertskjöld-Nordenstam, Hannu Tiitinen, Satu Tissari, Risto Näätänen,

Visual perception and processing mechanisms

We used a whole-scalp magnetometer with 122 planar gradiometers to study the activity of the visual cortex of five blind humans deprived of visual input since early infancy. Magnetic responses were recorded to pitch changes in a sound sequence when the subjects were either counting these changes or ignoring the stimuli. In two of the blind subjects, magnetic resonance images were also obtained, showing normal visual cortex macroanatomy. In these subjects, the magnetic responses to counted pitch changes were located at visual and temporal cortices whereas ignored pitch changes activated the temporal cortices almost exclusively. Also in two of the other three blind, the visual-cortex activation was detectable in the auditory counting task. Our results suggest that the visual cortex of blind humans can participate in auditory discrimination.