Affiliations: Department of Neurology, Emory University
Rehabilitation R&D Center of Excellence, Atlanta, GA, USA | Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Emory
University Rehabilitation R&D Center of Excellence, Atlanta, GA,
USA | Department of Psychology, Emory University
Rehabilitation R&D Center of Excellence, Atlanta, GA, USA | VA Medical Center, Atlanta, GA, USA
Note: [] Corresponding author: K. Sathian, Department of Neurology, Emory
University School of Medicine, WMB 6000, 101 Woodruff Circle, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Tel.: +1 404 727 1366; Fax: +1 404 727 3157; E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: This review focusses on cross-modal plasticity resulting from visual
deprivation. This is viewed against the background of task-specific visual
cortical recruitment that is routine during tactile tasks in the sighted and
that may depend in part on visual imagery. Superior tactile perceptual
performance in the blind may be practice-related, although there are unresolved
questions regarding the effects of Braille-reading experience and the age of
onset of blindness. While visual cortical areas are clearly more involved in
tactile microspatial processing in the blind than in the sighted, it still
remains unclear how to reconcile these tactile processes with the growing
literature implicating visual cortical activity in a wide range of cognitive
tasks in the blind, including those involving language, or with studies of
short-term, reversible visual deprivation in the normally sighted that reveal
plastic changes even over periods of hours or days.
