Poster No:
857
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Wenbin Pang1, Linjun Zhang2
Institutions:
1Shandong First Medical University & Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Jinan, China, 2Peking University, Beijing, China
First Author:
Wenbin Pang
Shandong First Medical University & Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences
Jinan, China
Co-Author:
Introduction:
The human brain remains plastic throughout life, yet the capacity of the brain to adapt is not constant. Age-related declines in brain plasticity have been suggested by prior research. And while the distinctions have been observed in auditory processing skills between early and late blind subjects, the neural mechanisms underlying these variations remain unclear. In this fMRI study we compared the cortical plastic changes during pitch processing in early and late blind subjects.
Methods:
Eighteen early blind (4 females; aged 18-30 years) and 17 late blind (5 females; aged 18-32 years) subjects participated in this study. The fMRI experiment adopted a sparse-sampling, fast event-related design. Participants performed three tasks including one passive (passive pitch perception) task and two active (pitch discrimination and pitch direction judgment) tasks.
Results:
While there was no significant difference in brain activation between the two groups for passive pitch perception, region of interest (ROI) analyses revealed a significant negative correlation between activation intensity in the V5/MT area and the age of onset of blindness. During pitch discrimination and pitch direction judgment tasks, activation intensity in the cuneus and middle occipital gyrus (MOG) was significantly higher in early blind subjects compared to late blind subjects. Additionally, the results show that a stronger response in these two regions was associated with an earlier age of onset of blindness.
Conclusions:
In conclusion, while the plasticity of the cerebral cortex gradually declines with age, the visual cortices of late blind individuals (vision loss after four years old) continue to be recruited for pitch processing attributable to cross-modal reorganization. Specifically, the primary visual cortex remains engaged in pitch processing tasks following late blindness. However, compared to individuals who are either congenitally or early blind, late blind individuals show weaker involvement of the higher-order visual cortices, with this involvement varying depending on the age of blindness onset, suggesting differences in cortical plasticity. Our findings indicate that the primary visual cortex in the human brain retains a significant degree of plasticity, even when blindness occurs after the age of four.
Learning and Memory:
Neural Plasticity and Recovery of Function 1
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI)
Perception, Attention and Motor Behavior:
Perception: Auditory/ Vestibular 2
Keywords:
Hearing
Plasticity
Vision
Other - blindness
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Please indicate below if your study was a "resting state" or "task-activation” study.
Task-activation
Healthy subjects only or patients (note that patient studies may also involve healthy subjects):
Patients
Was this research conducted in the United States?
No
Were any human subjects research approved by the relevant Institutional Review Board or ethics panel?
NOTE: Any human subjects studies without IRB approval will be automatically rejected.
Yes
Were any animal research approved by the relevant IACUC or other animal research panel?
NOTE: Any animal studies without IACUC approval will be automatically rejected.
Not applicable
Please indicate which methods were used in your research:
Functional MRI
Behavior
For human MRI, what field strength scanner do you use?
3.0T
Which processing packages did you use for your study?
SPM
Provide references using APA citation style.
Gougoux, F., Lepore, F., Lassonde, M., Voss, P., Zatorre, R. J., & Belin, P. (2004). Pitch discrimination in the early blind. Nature, 430(6997), 309.
Voss, P., Gougoux, F., Zatorre, R. J., Lassonde, M., & Lepore, F. (2008). Differential occipital responses in early- and late-blind individuals during a sound-source discrimination task. NeuroImage, 40(2), 746-758.
Huber, E., Jiang, F., & Fine, I. (2019). Responses in area hMT+ reflect tuning for both auditory frequency and motion after blindness early in life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(20), 10081-10086.
Castaldi, E., Lunghi, C., & Morrone, M. C. (2020). Neuroplasticity in adult human visual cortex. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 112, 542-552.
Sabourin, C. J., Merrikhi, Y., & Lomber, S. G. (2022). Do blind people hear better?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 26(11), 999-1012.
No