Prevalence of increases in functional connectivity in visual, somatosensory and language areas in congenital blindness.

ABSTRACT: There is ample evidence that congenitally blind individuals rely more strongly on non-visual information compared to sighted controls when interacting with the outside world. Although brain imaging studies indicate that congenitally blind individuals recruit occipital areas when performing various non-visual and cognitive tasks, it remains unclear through which pathways this is accomplished. To address this question, we compared resting state functional connectivity in a group of congenital blind and matched sighted control subjects. We used a seed-based analysis with a priori specified regions-of-interest (ROIs) within visual, somato-sensory, auditory and language areas. Between-group comparisons revealed increased functional connectivity within both the ventral and the dorsal visual stre

SUBMITTER: Heine L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4486836 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature