The Effect of Visual Experience on the Development of Functional Architecture in hMT+

Ricciardi, Emiliano; Vanello, Nicola; Sani, Lorenzo; Gentili, Claudio; Scilingo, Enzo Pasquale; Landini, Luigi; Guazzelli, Mario; Bicchi, Antonio; Haxby, James V.; Pietrini, Pietro

doi:10.1093/cercor/bhm018

Cited by 167 publications

(176 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Indeed, there is evidence that regions in LOTC are involved in extracting object shape from tactile input (Peelen, Rogers, Wing, Downing, & Bracewell, 2010;Amedi, von Kriegstein, van Atteveldt, Beauchamp, & Naumer, 2005;Reed, Shoham, & Halgren, 2004;Amedi, Jacobson, Hendler, Malach, & Zohary, 2002;Amedi, Malach, Hendler, Peled, & Zohary, 2001). Furthermore, motion-selective area hMT + , located just posterior to LOTC tool, responds to auditory motion, particularly in early blind individuals (Bedny et al, 2010;Saenz, Lewis, Huth, Fine, & Koch, 2008;Ricciardi et al, 2007;Poirier et al, 2005Poirier et al, , 2006. These results are consistent with the idea that "visual" regions in sighted individuals may perform similar computations (e.g., motion processing) on input from nonvisual modalities in congenitally blind individuals (Pascual-Leone & Hamilton, 2001).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Tool Selectivity in Left Occipitotemporal Cortex Develops without Vision

Peelen

Bracci

et al. 2013

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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Abstract■ Previous studies have provided evidence for a tool-selective region in left lateral occipitotemporal cortex (LOTC). This region responds selectively to pictures of tools and to characteristic visual tool motion. The present human fMRI study tested whether visual experience is required for the development of tool-selective responses in left LOTC. Words referring to tools, animals, and nonmanipulable objects were presented auditorily to 14 congenitally blind and 16 sighted participants. Sighted participants additionally viewed pictures of these objects. In whole-brain group analyses, sighted participants showed toolselective activity in left LOTC in both visual and auditory tasks. Importantly, virtually identical tool-selective LOTC activity was found in the congenitally blind group performing the auditory task. Furthermore, both groups showed equally strong toolselective activity for auditory stimuli in a tool-selective LOTC region defined by the picture-viewing task in the sighted group. Detailed analyses in individual participants showed significant tool-selective LOTC activity in 13 of 14 blind participants and 14 of 16 sighted participants. The strength and anatomical location of this activity were indistinguishable across groups. Finally, both blind and sighted groups showed significant resting state functional connectivity between left LOTC and a bilateral frontoparietal network. Together, these results indicate that toolselective activity in left LOTC develops without ever having seen a tool or its motion. This finding puts constraints on the possible role that this region could have in tool processing and, more generally, provides new insights into the principles shaping the functional organization of OTC. ■

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Tool Selectivity in Left Occipitotemporal Cortex Develops without Vision

Peelen

Bracci

et al. 2013

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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“…Nor did Poirier et al (2005Poirier et al ( , 2006 test whether the responses that they found near the presumed location of MTϩ were selective for motion stimuli. Interestingly, another study in early-blind subjects reported acquired tactile motion responses in a region consistent with MTϩ (Ricciardi et al, 2007). Independent of when plasticity occurred in our sightrecovery subjects, what is remarkable is the specificity of the acquired MTϩ response to auditory motion and the consistency of these findings across two rare individuals.…”

Section: Previous Studies Of Cross-modal Responses In Mt؉supporting

confidence: 52%

Visual Motion Area MT+/V5 Responds to Auditory Motion in Human Sight-Recovery Subjects

et al. 2008

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Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we found that cortical visual motion area MTϩ/V5 responded to auditory motion in two rare subjects who had been blind since early childhood and whose vision was partially recovered in adulthood. Visually normal control subjects did not show similar auditory responses. These auditory responses in MTϩ were specific to motion compared with other complex auditory stimuli including frequency sweeps and speech. Thus, MTϩ developed motion-specific responses to nonvisual input, suggesting that cross-modal plasticity can be influenced by the normal functional specialization of a cortical region. Regarding sight recovery after early blindness, our results further demonstrate that cross-modal responses coexist with regained visual responses within the visual cortex.

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“…Recent functional studies have revealed that individuals with no visual experience rely on supramodal brain areas within the ventral and dorsal extrastriate cortex, which are often referred to as extrastriate visual cortex, to acquire knowledge about shape, movement, and localization of objects, through nonvisual sensory modalities, including touch and hearing (Pietrini et al, 2004;Amedi et al, 2005;Ricciardi et al, 2007Cattaneo et al, 2008). The recruitment of these extrastriate regions in congenitally blind individuals during nonvisual recognition indicates that visual experience or visually based imagery is not necessary for an abstract representation of object and spatial features in these regions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do We Really Need Vision? How Blind People “See” the Actions of Others

Ricciardi¹,

Bonino²,

Sani³

et al. 2009

J. Neurosci.

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124

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Observing and learning actions and behaviors from others, a mechanism crucial for survival and social interaction, engages the mirror neuron system. To determine whether vision is a necessary prerequisite for the human mirror system to develop and function, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare brain activity in congenitally blind individuals during the auditory presentation of hand-executed actions or environmental sounds, and the motor pantomime of manipulation tasks, with that in sighted volunteers, who additionally performed a visual action recognition task. Congenitally blind individuals activated a premotor-temporoparietal cortical network in response to aurally presented actions that overlapped both with mirror system areas found in sighted subjects in response to visually and aurally presented stimuli, and with the brain response elicited by motor pantomime of the same actions. Furthermore, the mirror system cortex showed a significantly greater response to motor familiar than to unfamiliar action sounds in both sighted and blind individuals. Thus, the mirror system in humans can develop in the absence of sight. The results in blind individuals demonstrate that the sound of an action engages the mirror system for action schemas that have not been learned through the visual modality and that this activity is not mediated by visual imagery. These findings indicate that the mirror system is based on supramodal sensory representations of actions and, furthermore, that these abstract representations allow individuals with no visual experience to interact effectively with others.

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The Effect of Visual Experience on the Development of Functional Architecture in hMT+

Cited by 167 publications

References 29 publications

Tool Selectivity in Left Occipitotemporal Cortex Develops without Vision

Tool Selectivity in Left Occipitotemporal Cortex Develops without Vision

Visual Motion Area MT+/V5 Responds to Auditory Motion in Human Sight-Recovery Subjects

Do We Really Need Vision? How Blind People “See” the Actions of Others

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