Event Abstract Back to Event Cross-modal connectivity of secondary auditory cortex with higher visual area in the congenitally deaf Yulwan Sung1* and Seiji Ogawa1 1 Tohoku Fukushi University, Kansei Fukushi Research Institute, Japan We identified, by functional MRI (fMRI), areas showing cross-modal plasticity in auditory cortex for processing of visual language inputs and from what visual stage signal inputs come into the auditory cortex in the congenitally deaf. One deaf subject (left-handed) and four normal hearing subjects, each two left- and right-handed, were participated. MRI scan was performed twice with one year interval for the deaf subject and once for the hearing subjects. For the deaf subject superior temporal gyrus was activated broadly by visual stimulation. By the comparison of language condition and non-language condition, the anterior region of the superior temporal gyrus, BA 22, was identified in the right hemisphere which was corresponding to the anterior secondary auditory cortex. In the left hemisphere, the identified area was located at a little bit lower than that of the right hemisphere, corresponding to the secondary/auditory association cortices. With the identified area as a seed a correlation analysis was performed for the data acquired in resting state. Fusiform gyrus on the ventral visual pathway was identified, only in the right hemisphere. The same area was identified by the correlation analysis with the left secondary auditory area as a seed. The two experiments across one year showed almost the same results. In contrast, for the normal hearing subjects, only small activations in the superior temporal gyrus were found by the visual stimulation. The comparison of the language and non-language condition did not identify any region. There was also no significant difference between the left-handed and right-handed subjects for the normal hearing subjects. The present data show that the auditory cortices in the deaf are reorganized to receive visual language inputs, especially at higher level above the primary auditory cortex, and visual inputs into the reorganized areas come from the high-level visual area, fusiform gyrus. Figure 1 Figure 2 Acknowledgements This study was supported by a Program of Funding Basic Res. Ctr. in Private Univ. (MEXT) to the Kansei Fukushi Res. Ctr., Tohoku Fukushi Univ. (2008-2012).