Auditory activation of cortical visual areas in cats after early visual deprivation

Yaka, Rami; Yinon, U.; Wollberg, Z.

doi:10.1046/j.1460-9568.1999.00536.x

Cited by 66 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 46 publications

(68 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In their classic study, Rauschecker and Korte (2) showed that the ectosylvian visual area responded vigorously to auditory and/or somatosensory stimuli in cats visually deprived from birth. Similar developmental studies have been performed in a variety of species and their common finding was that cortical areas normally devoted to processing one sensory modality were converted to the other sensory systems following early visual deprivation (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8) or early deafening (9-13, but see 14).…”

mentioning

confidence: 70%

Adult deafness induces somatosensory conversion of ferret auditory cortex

Allman

Keniston

Meredith

2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

115

123

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In response to early or developmental lesions, responsiveness of sensory cortex can be converted from the deprived modality to that of the remaining sensory systems. However, little is known about capacity of the adult cortex for cross-modal reorganization. The present study examined the auditory cortices of animals deafened as adults, and observed an extensive somatosensory conversion within as little as 16 days after deafening. These results demonstrate that cortical cross-modal reorganization can occur after the period of sensory system maturation.aging ͉ cross-modal reorganization ͉ hearing loss ͉ plasticity ͉ reorganization T he study of neural plasticity has revealed the considerable vulnerability of the developing brain to altered sensory experience (1). This vulnerability is particularly evident when the loss of peripheral sensory input results in the cross-modal reorganization of cortex. In their classic study, Rauschecker and Korte (2) showed that the ectosylvian visual area responded vigorously to auditory and/or somatosensory stimuli in cats visually deprived from birth. Similar developmental studies have been performed in a variety of species and their common finding was that cortical areas normally devoted to processing one sensory modality were converted to the other sensory systems following early visual deprivation (3-8) or early deafening (9-13, but see 14).In contrast to these established developmental effects, little is known about the potential for cross-modal reorganization from lesions occurring after the sensory systems have matured. The few animal studies of adult cross-modal reorganization have described far less robust effects and collectively appear inconclusive. Blinding of adult rabbits resulted in somatosensory innervation of primary visual cortex near its border with somatosensory cortex (15). However, in deafened auditory cortex (16), visual responses were observed in the primary auditory area of cats deafened at 1 week of age, but not when cats were deafened at a later stage. In humans, regions of multi-sensory cortex become more visually active after late-onset deafness (17), which is not surprising given the presence of visual inputs before the hearing loss.Despite these limited and equivocal results regarding lateonset cross-modal reorganization, there is considerable evidence that the adult cortex is capable of reacting to loss of peripheral input (18,19). Investigations of adult subjects that received peripheral insults such as digit amputation (20), focal retinal lesions (21, 22), and frequency-specific cochlear lesions (23) revealed that the initially silenced cortical locus eventually developed responses similar to those of unaffected neighboring neurons (18,24). Although these effects occurred within the same modality, the fact that intra-modal reorganization had occurred is consistent with the likelihood that the sensory cortices of adults are indeed mutable.Hearing impairment is one of the most prevalent neurological disorders in humans, affecting 16% of adults in the...

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 70%

Adult deafness induces somatosensory conversion of ferret auditory cortex

Allman

Keniston

Meredith

2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

115

123

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This phenomenon is particularly prominent in sensory deprivation. The visual cortex becomes recruited for tactile and auditory perception in the blind (1,2,6,8,13,16,17,(41)(42)(43), and the auditory cortex becomes recruited for tactile and visual perception in the deaf (20-23, 26-29, 44). Such large-scale reorganization is also possible after intensive training in nondeprived subjects (5,12,(45)(46)(47)(48)(49).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Task-specific reorganization of the auditory cortex in deaf humans

Bola

Zimmermann

Mostowski

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

160

122

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The principles that guide large-scale cortical reorganization remain unclear. In the blind, several visual regions preserve their task specificity; ventral visual areas, for example, become engaged in auditory and tactile object-recognition tasks. It remains open whether task-specific reorganization is unique to the visual cortex or, alternatively, whether this kind of plasticity is a general principle applying to other cortical areas. Auditory areas can become recruited for visual and tactile input in the deaf. Although nonhuman data suggest that this reorganization might be task specific, human evidence has been lacking. Here we enrolled 15 deaf and 15 hearing adults into an functional MRI experiment during which they discriminated between temporally complex sequences of stimuli (rhythms). Both deaf and hearing subjects performed the task visually, in the central visual field. In addition, hearing subjects performed the same task in the auditory modality. We found that the visual task robustly activated the auditory cortex in deaf subjects, peaking in the posterior–lateral part of high-level auditory areas. This activation pattern was strikingly similar to the pattern found in hearing subjects performing the auditory version of the task. Although performing the visual task in deaf subjects induced an increase in functional connectivity between the auditory cortex and the dorsal visual cortex, no such effect was found in hearing subjects. We conclude that in deaf humans the high-level auditory cortex switches its input modality from sound to vision but preserves its task-specific activation pattern independent of input modality. Task-specific reorganization thus might be a general principle that guides cortical plasticity in the brain.

show abstract

“…Indeed, experiments in kittens have demonstrated that projections from the auditory cortex to the occipital cortex are eliminated either through cell death or retraction of exuberant collaterals during the synaptic pruning phase (Dehay et al, 1988;Innocenti et al, 1988). Importantly, in kittens deprived of vision at birth, these extrinsic connections to the occipital cortex seem to remain (Berman, 1991;Yaka et al, 1999). It is thus plausible that in the absence of competitive visual inputs during the synaptic stabilization phase, a significant number of direct auditory connections to the occipital cortex persist.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of blindness onset on the functional organization and the connectivity of the occipital cortex

Collignon

Dormal

Albouy

et al. 2013

Brain

202

177

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Contrasting the impact of congenital versus late-onset acquired blindness provides a unique model to probe how experience at different developmental periods shapes the functional organization of the occipital cortex. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to characterize brain activations of congenitally blind, late-onset blind and two groups of sighted control individuals while they processed either the pitch or the spatial attributes of sounds. Whereas both blind groups recruited occipital regions for sound processing, activity in bilateral cuneus was only apparent in the congenitally blind, highlighting the existence of region-specific critical periods for crossmodal plasticity. Most importantly, the preferential activation of the right dorsal stream (middle occipital gyrus and cuneus) for the spatial processing of sounds was only observed in the congenitally blind. This demonstrates that vision has to be lost during an early sensitive period in order to transfer its functional specialization for space processing toward a non-visual modality. We then used a combination of dynamic causal modelling with Bayesian model selection to demonstrate that auditory-driven activity in primary visual cortex is better explained by direct connections with primary auditory cortex in the congenitally blind whereas it relies more on feedback inputs from parietal regions in the late-onset blind group. Taken together, these results demonstrate the crucial role of the developmental period of visual deprivation in (re)shaping the functional architecture and the connectivity of the occipital cortex. Such findings are clinically important now that a growing number of medical interventions may restore vision after a period of visual deprivation.

show abstract

Auditory activation of cortical visual areas in cats after early visual deprivation

Cited by 66 publications

References 46 publications

Adult deafness induces somatosensory conversion of ferret auditory cortex

Adult deafness induces somatosensory conversion of ferret auditory cortex

Task-specific reorganization of the auditory cortex in deaf humans

Impact of blindness onset on the functional organization and the connectivity of the occipital cortex

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About