Early blindness shifts the feedforward laminar profile of hMT+/V5 from visual to auditory motion
The occipital cortex of people born blind massively enhances its response to sounds, but the brain circuitry supporting such crossmodal plasticity remains elusive. Here we capitalized on ultra-high-field fMRI (7T) coupled with sub-millimetre BOLD and VASO acquisitions to infer whether motion-related information is processed via feedforward or feedback pathways, probing responses to visual motion…
Recent research utilizing ultra-high-field fMRI with sub-millimetre BOLD and VASO acquisitions has uncovered a fascinating shift in the brain's processing of motion, specifically in individuals born blind. The study focused on the middle temporal cortex, known as hMT+/V5, in both sighted and early blind participants.
Visual motion stimuli did not elicit a response in sighted individuals, but moving sounds did trigger a feedforward reaction in the middle layers of hMT+/V5 among blind individuals. This mirrors the visual motion processing observed in sighted people, suggesting that the brain reconfigures its processing pathways based on the available sensory input.
Moreover, the study revealed enhanced connectivity between hMT+/V5 and two key regions: the Planum Temporale in sighted individuals and the cuneus in blind participants. These findings collectively demonstrate that hMT+/V5 adapts to function as a feedforward motion-sensitive processor, shifting its sensory input from vision to audition when visual experience is absent. This groundbreaking work sheds light on the remarkable plasticity of the brain in adapting its circuitry to accommodate different sensory modalities.
Written by urgent.news from bioRxiv's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
