Finney Eva M, Clementz Brett A, Hickok Gregory, Dobkins Karen R
Department of Psychology, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
Neuroreport. 2003 Aug 6;14(11):1425-7. doi: 10.1097/00001756-200308060-00004.
Studies using fMRI have demonstrated that visual stimuli activate auditory cortex in deaf subjects. Given the low temporal resolution of fMRI, it is uncertain whether this activation is associated with initial stimulus processing. Here, we used MEG in deaf and hearing subjects to evaluate whether auditory cortex, devoid of its normal input, comes to serve the visual modality early in the course of stimulus processing. In line with previous findings, visual activity was observed in the auditory cortex of deaf, but not hearing, subjects. This activity occurred within 100-400 ms of stimulus presentation and was primarily over the right hemisphere. These results add to the mounting evidence that removal of one sensory modality in humans leads to neural reorganization of the remaining modalities.
使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）的研究表明，视觉刺激会激活聋人受试者的听觉皮层。鉴于fMRI的时间分辨率较低，尚不确定这种激活是否与初始刺激处理有关。在此，我们对聋人和听力正常的受试者使用了脑磁图（MEG），以评估缺乏正常输入的听觉皮层是否在刺激处理过程的早期就开始服务于视觉模态。与先前的研究结果一致，在聋人而非听力正常的受试者的听觉皮层中观察到了视觉活动。这种活动在刺激呈现后的100 - 400毫秒内出现，并且主要出现在右半球。这些结果进一步证明，人类去除一种感觉模态会导致其余模态的神经重组。
