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Cortical Plasticity and Olfactory Function in Early Blindness

Over the last decade, functional brain imaging has provided insight to the maturation processes and has helped elucidate the pathophysiological mechanisms involved in brain plasticity in the absence of vision. In case of congenital blindness, drastic changes occur within the deafferented “visual” co...

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Autores principales: Araneda, Rodrigo, Renier, Laurent A., Rombaux, Philippe, Cuevas, Isabel, De Volder, Anne G.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5003898/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27625596
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2016.00075
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author Araneda, Rodrigo
Renier, Laurent A.
Rombaux, Philippe
Cuevas, Isabel
De Volder, Anne G.
author_facet Araneda, Rodrigo
Renier, Laurent A.
Rombaux, Philippe
Cuevas, Isabel
De Volder, Anne G.
author_sort Araneda, Rodrigo
collection PubMed
description Over the last decade, functional brain imaging has provided insight to the maturation processes and has helped elucidate the pathophysiological mechanisms involved in brain plasticity in the absence of vision. In case of congenital blindness, drastic changes occur within the deafferented “visual” cortex that starts receiving and processing non visual inputs, including olfactory stimuli. This functional reorganization of the occipital cortex gives rise to compensatory perceptual and cognitive mechanisms that help blind persons achieve perceptual tasks, leading to superior olfactory abilities in these subjects. This view receives support from psychophysical testing, volumetric measurements and functional brain imaging studies in humans, which are presented here.
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spelling pubmed-50038982016-09-13 Cortical Plasticity and Olfactory Function in Early Blindness Araneda, Rodrigo Renier, Laurent A. Rombaux, Philippe Cuevas, Isabel De Volder, Anne G. Front Syst Neurosci Neuroscience Over the last decade, functional brain imaging has provided insight to the maturation processes and has helped elucidate the pathophysiological mechanisms involved in brain plasticity in the absence of vision. In case of congenital blindness, drastic changes occur within the deafferented “visual” cortex that starts receiving and processing non visual inputs, including olfactory stimuli. This functional reorganization of the occipital cortex gives rise to compensatory perceptual and cognitive mechanisms that help blind persons achieve perceptual tasks, leading to superior olfactory abilities in these subjects. This view receives support from psychophysical testing, volumetric measurements and functional brain imaging studies in humans, which are presented here. Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-08-30 /pmc/articles/PMC5003898/ /pubmed/27625596 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2016.00075 Text en Copyright © 2016 Araneda, Renier, Rombaux, Cuevas and De Volder. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution and reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Araneda, Rodrigo
Renier, Laurent A.
Rombaux, Philippe
Cuevas, Isabel
De Volder, Anne G.
Cortical Plasticity and Olfactory Function in Early Blindness
title Cortical Plasticity and Olfactory Function in Early Blindness
title_full Cortical Plasticity and Olfactory Function in Early Blindness
title_fullStr Cortical Plasticity and Olfactory Function in Early Blindness
title_full_unstemmed Cortical Plasticity and Olfactory Function in Early Blindness
title_short Cortical Plasticity and Olfactory Function in Early Blindness
title_sort cortical plasticity and olfactory function in early blindness
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5003898/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27625596
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2016.00075
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