Crossmodal Plasticity
On December 17 2014, the Journal of Neurophysiology published Tracking the evolution of crossmodal plasticity and visual functions before and after sight restoration. In this article on perception, a group of researchers looked at the effect of how eyesight restoration on the brain. The visual processing center of the brain is the occipital cortex. Thus when a person is blind or has deficiencies in sight, there are issues in the occipital cortex either structurally or in functioning. In addition to visual functions, the researchers also looked at crossmodal plasticity which is the ability of the neurons in the brain to reorganize to better fuse the function of two or more sensory systems. Keeping this in mind, it is reasonable to also look
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KL, the woman, had many visual issues in her childhood and early married life including a lazy left eye (left alone from this study), dense bilateral cataracts (a surgery was done and failed) and rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (twice). Later on, she received corneal grafting which was rejected by the eyes twice. In 2012, she received a Boston keratoprosthesis in her right eye as well as a contact lens with optical correction and glasses which is when the experiment was done. In the actual study, KL was tested three times in behavior, MRI and fMRI procedures: three weeks before the Boston keratophosthesis surgery, 1.5 months after, and seven months after. In the behavioral procedure, KL completed tasks that evaluated her “distance visual acuity, contrast sensitivity function, global motion detection, …and face individuation abilities.” fMRI scans were done after four different experiments that tested motion and face localizer as well as auditory experiments. MRI scans were done over time to look at structural changes after tasks. In this study, the control group consisted of three middle age right-handed women who had corrected-to-normal vision, who underwent the behavior experiments. For the MRI scans, the control group was nine normal sighted people who had two MRI scans done in a range of 35 days and 3.5 years. For the fMRI scans, a variety of number of people
KL, the woman, had many visual issues in her childhood and early married life including a lazy left eye (left alone from this study), dense bilateral cataracts (a surgery was done and failed) and rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (twice). Later on, she received corneal grafting which was rejected by the eyes twice. In 2012, she received a Boston keratoprosthesis in her right eye as well as a contact lens with optical correction and glasses which is when the experiment was done. In the actual study, KL was tested three times in behavior, MRI and fMRI procedures: three weeks before the Boston keratophosthesis surgery, 1.5 months after, and seven months after. In the behavioral procedure, KL completed tasks that evaluated her “distance visual acuity, contrast sensitivity function, global motion detection, …and face individuation abilities.” fMRI scans were done after four different experiments that tested motion and face localizer as well as auditory experiments. MRI scans were done over time to look at structural changes after tasks. In this study, the control group consisted of three middle age right-handed women who had corrected-to-normal vision, who underwent the behavior experiments. For the MRI scans, the control group was nine normal sighted people who had two MRI scans done in a range of 35 days and 3.5 years. For the fMRI scans, a variety of number of people