Abstract
How does the Visual Cortex of the Blind Acquire Auditory Responsiveness?
Highlights
Klinge et al (2010) suggest a functional link between A1 and V1 in the blind, it is difficult to know based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and modeling data alone how these two areas might be anatomically connected
The authors found that the fully connected model was the most probable model for both hemispheres in both vision groups. This suggests that there exist reciprocal connections among the three hypothesized brain regions in both blind and sighted participants
The authors found, nonsignificant, a trend for stronger medial geniculate nucleus (MGN)–V1 connection strength in blind than in sighted participants in the right hemisphere. This non-significant trend is interesting in light of tracing studies that have reported the existence of thalamocortical connections from the MGN to V1 in mutant congenitally eyeless mice (Laemle et al, 2006) and – scarce – in neonatally enucleated opossums (Karlen et al, 2006)
Summary
Klinge et al (2010) suggest a functional link between A1 and V1 in the blind, it is difficult to know based on fMRI and modeling data alone how these two areas might be anatomically connected. Klinge et al (2010) used fMRI to measure the blood oxygen-level dependent activity of congenitally blind and normally sighted human participants during an auditory non sense-word-discrimination task, and used DCM (see Friston, 2009) to infer, from the fMRI data, the effective connectivity between three hypothesized brain regions: V1, A1, and the medial geniculate nucleus (MGN). This suggests that there exist reciprocal connections among the three hypothesized brain regions in both blind and sighted participants.
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