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Cross-modal plasticity for the spatial processing of sounds in visually deprived subjects

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Abstract

Until only a few decades ago, researchers still considered sensory cortices to be fixed or “hardwired,” with specific cortical regions solely dedicated to the processing of selective sensory inputs. But recent evidences have shown that the brain can rewire itself, showing an impressive range of cross-modal plasticity. Visual deprivation is one of the rare human models that allow us to explore the role of experience-dependent plasticity of a sensory cortex deprived of its natural inputs. The objective of this paper is to describe recent results regarding the spatial processing of sounds in blind subjects. These studies suggest that blind individuals may demonstrate exceptional abilities in auditory spatial processing and that such enhanced performances may be intrinsically linked to the recruitment of occipital areas deprived of their normal visual inputs. Such results highlight the brain’s remarkable ability to rewire its components to compensate for the challenging neurological condition that is visual deprivation. Moreover, we shall discuss that such cross-modal recruitment may, to some extent, follow organizational principles similar to the functional topography of the region observed in the sighted. Even if such recruitment is especially present in individuals having lost their sight in early infancy, occipital regions also show impressive plastic properties when vision is lost at a later age. This observation will be related to recent results demonstrating that occipital regions play a more important role than previously expected in the spatial processing of sounds, even in sighted subjects. Putative physiological mechanisms underlying such cross-modal recruitment will then be discussed. All these results have important implications for understanding the role of visual experience in shaping the development of occipital regions and may guide the implementation of rehabilitative methods such as sensory substitution or neural implants.

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Notes

  1. In all the cited papers, the upper limit for total blindness acquisition in the early blind group vary between 2 and 10 years and the lower limit for total blindness acquisition for the late blind group vary from 9 to 16 years. Although some authors have suggested the existence of a precise critical period (i.e., 14 years) beyond which little or no behavioral compensation and no crossmodal recruitment of primary visual cortex is possible (Cohen et al. 1999; Sadato et al. 2002), we think that the determination of an exact age cut-off between “early” and “late” blind subject is a difficult exercise since it is influenced by the history of deficit acquisition. Indeed, it is quite rare that blind subjects suffer from sudden and total blindness. Usually, blind subjects experience progressive visual impairment prior to the onset of complete blindness. We thus think that functional criteria should also be added when separating early and late blind subjects. Indeed, it is fundamental that early blind subjects, if not totally blind at birth, never had functional vision during the first years of life which would have led to the normal development of the visual system. At the contrary, late blind subjects only represent a good model for the observation of plasticity in adult if they had an intact visual system before the apparition of visual deficits. For example, in our studies, all late blind subjects had been able to read print, travel by themselves, etc., to be included in our sample.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the FRSQ Rehabilitation network (REPAR; ML, FL, OC), the FRSQ Group grant (ML, FL), the Canada Research Chair Program (ML, FL), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (ML, FL) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (ML, FL, PV). OC is a postdoctoral researcher at the Belgian National Funds for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de Recherche en Neuropsychologie et Cognition (CERNEC), Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada

    Olivier Collignon, Patrice Voss, Maryse Lassonde & Franco Lepore

  2. Neural Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory, Centre for Research in Neurosciences (CRN), Université catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium 

    Olivier Collignon

  3. Centre de Recherche CHU Sainte-Justine, Montreal, Canada

    Maryse Lassonde & Franco Lepore

  4. Département de Psychologie, CERNEC, Université de Montréal, 90 Vincent d’Indy, CP 6128, succ. Centre-Ville, Montreal, QC, H3C 3J7, Canada

    Franco Lepore

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  1. Olivier Collignon
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  2. Patrice Voss
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  3. Maryse Lassonde
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  4. Franco Lepore
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Correspondence to Franco Lepore.

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Collignon, O., Voss, P., Lassonde, M. et al. Cross-modal plasticity for the spatial processing of sounds in visually deprived subjects. Exp Brain Res 192, 343–358 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-008-1553-z

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