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Occipital cortex reorganizes in early-blind individuals to provide sensory functionality

Neuron. 2010;68(1):138-148.

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The brains of early-blind individuals appear to reorganize, thereby retaining tactile and auditory sensory response.

In a study of early-blind individuals followed with functional MRI, the right middle occipital gyrus within the occipital cortex was active during auditory and tactile activities. According to the researchers, the region showed a preference for spatial vs. nonspatial processing in both tactile and auditory processing.

Meanwhile, in sighted individuals followed as controls, most of the extrastriate occipital cortex remained deactivated during both auditory and tactile conditions, even though the right middle occipital gyrus was more activated during spatial compared with nonspatial visual tasks.

The investigators also uncovered a correlation between activity within the middle occipital gyrus and the accuracy of individual sound localization performance.