Abstract
Cross-modal plasticity following early blindness has been widely documented across numerous visual areas, highlighting our brain’s remarkable adaptability to changes in sensory environment. In many of these areas, functional homologies have been observed between the original and reorganized responses. However, the mechanisms driving these homologies remain largely unknown.
Here, we will present findings that aim to answer this question within the area hMT+, which responds to visual motion in sighted individuals and to auditory motion in early blind individuals. Our goal was to examine how the known functional and anatomical properties of this area influence the development of cross-modal responses in early blind individuals.
Using a multimodal approach that encompasses psychophysics, computational modeling, and functional and quantitative MRI, we simultaneously characterized perceptual, functional, and anatomical selectivity to auditory motion within early blind and sighted individuals. We find that some anatomical and functional properties of hMT+ are inherited, while others are altered in those who become blind early in life.