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Massive cortical reorganization in sighted Braille readers

The brain is capable of large-scale reorganization in blindness or after massive injury. Such reorganization crosses the division into separate sensory cortices (visual, somatosensory...). As its result, the visual cortex of the blind becomes active during tactile Braille reading. Although the possi...

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Autores principales: Siuda-Krzywicka, Katarzyna, Bola, Łukasz, Paplińska, Małgorzata, Sumera, Ewa, Jednoróg, Katarzyna, Marchewka, Artur, Śliwińska, Magdalena W, Amedi, Amir, Szwed, Marcin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4805536/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26976813
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.10762
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author Siuda-Krzywicka, Katarzyna
Bola, Łukasz
Paplińska, Małgorzata
Sumera, Ewa
Jednoróg, Katarzyna
Marchewka, Artur
Śliwińska, Magdalena W
Amedi, Amir
Szwed, Marcin
author_facet Siuda-Krzywicka, Katarzyna
Bola, Łukasz
Paplińska, Małgorzata
Sumera, Ewa
Jednoróg, Katarzyna
Marchewka, Artur
Śliwińska, Magdalena W
Amedi, Amir
Szwed, Marcin
author_sort Siuda-Krzywicka, Katarzyna
collection PubMed
description The brain is capable of large-scale reorganization in blindness or after massive injury. Such reorganization crosses the division into separate sensory cortices (visual, somatosensory...). As its result, the visual cortex of the blind becomes active during tactile Braille reading. Although the possibility of such reorganization in the normal, adult brain has been raised, definitive evidence has been lacking. Here, we demonstrate such extensive reorganization in normal, sighted adults who learned Braille while their brain activity was investigated with fMRI and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Subjects showed enhanced activity for tactile reading in the visual cortex, including the visual word form area (VWFA) that was modulated by their Braille reading speed and strengthened resting-state connectivity between visual and somatosensory cortices. Moreover, TMS disruption of VWFA activity decreased their tactile reading accuracy. Our results indicate that large-scale reorganization is a viable mechanism recruited when learning complex skills. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.10762.001
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spelling pubmed-48055362016-03-25 Massive cortical reorganization in sighted Braille readers Siuda-Krzywicka, Katarzyna Bola, Łukasz Paplińska, Małgorzata Sumera, Ewa Jednoróg, Katarzyna Marchewka, Artur Śliwińska, Magdalena W Amedi, Amir Szwed, Marcin eLife Neuroscience The brain is capable of large-scale reorganization in blindness or after massive injury. Such reorganization crosses the division into separate sensory cortices (visual, somatosensory...). As its result, the visual cortex of the blind becomes active during tactile Braille reading. Although the possibility of such reorganization in the normal, adult brain has been raised, definitive evidence has been lacking. Here, we demonstrate such extensive reorganization in normal, sighted adults who learned Braille while their brain activity was investigated with fMRI and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Subjects showed enhanced activity for tactile reading in the visual cortex, including the visual word form area (VWFA) that was modulated by their Braille reading speed and strengthened resting-state connectivity between visual and somatosensory cortices. Moreover, TMS disruption of VWFA activity decreased their tactile reading accuracy. Our results indicate that large-scale reorganization is a viable mechanism recruited when learning complex skills. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.10762.001 eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2016-03-15 /pmc/articles/PMC4805536/ /pubmed/26976813 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.10762 Text en © 2016, Siuda-Krzywicka et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Siuda-Krzywicka, Katarzyna
Bola, Łukasz
Paplińska, Małgorzata
Sumera, Ewa
Jednoróg, Katarzyna
Marchewka, Artur
Śliwińska, Magdalena W
Amedi, Amir
Szwed, Marcin
Massive cortical reorganization in sighted Braille readers
title Massive cortical reorganization in sighted Braille readers
title_full Massive cortical reorganization in sighted Braille readers
title_fullStr Massive cortical reorganization in sighted Braille readers
title_full_unstemmed Massive cortical reorganization in sighted Braille readers
title_short Massive cortical reorganization in sighted Braille readers
title_sort massive cortical reorganization in sighted braille readers
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4805536/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26976813
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.10762
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