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Default brain functionality in blind people.
- Source :
-
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America [Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A] 2004 Oct 26; Vol. 101 (43), pp. 15500-5. Date of Electronic Publication: 2004 Oct 15. - Publication Year :
- 2004
-
Abstract
- We studied whether default functionality of the human brain, as revealed by task-independent decreases in activity occurring during goal-directed behaviors, is functionally reorganized by blindness. Three groups of otherwise normal adults were studied: early blind, adventitiously blind, and normally sighted. They were imaged by using functional MRI during performance of a word association task (verb generation to nouns) administered by using auditory stimuli in all groups and Braille reading in blind participants. In sighted people, this task normally produces robust task-independent decreases relative to a baseline of quiet wakefulness with eyes closed. Our functional MRI results indicate that task-independent decreases are qualitatively similar across all participant groups in medial and dorsal prefrontal, lateral parietal, anterior precuneus, and posterior cingulate cortices. Similarities in task-independent decreases are consistent with the hypothesis that functional reorganization resulting from the absence of a particular sensory modality does not qualitatively affect default functionality as revealed by task-independent decreases. More generally, these results support the notion that the brain largely operates intrinsically, with sensory information modulating rather than determining system operations.
- Subjects :
- Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Blindness physiopathology
Brain physiopathology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 0027-8424
- Volume :
- 101
- Issue :
- 43
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 15489267
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0406676101