Laboratory of Clinical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Dept. of Surgery, Medical, Molecular, and Critical Area Pathology, University of Pisa, I-56127 Pisa, Italy Research Center 'E. Piaggio', University of Pisa, I-56127 Pisa, Italy.
Laboratory of Clinical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Dept. of Surgery, Medical, Molecular, and Critical Area Pathology, University of Pisa, I-56127 Pisa, Italy.
Exp Biol Med (Maywood). 2014 Nov;239(11):1414-20. doi: 10.1177/1535370214538740. Epub 2014 Jun 24.
Since the early days, how we represent the world around us has been a matter of philosophical speculation. Over the last few decades, modern neuroscience, and specifically the development of methodologies for the structural and the functional exploration of the brain have made it possible to investigate old questions with an innovative approach. In this brief review, we discuss the main findings from a series of brain anatomical and functional studies conducted in sighted and congenitally blind individuals by our's and others' laboratories. Historically, research on the 'blind brain' has focused mainly on the cross-modal plastic changes that follow sensory deprivation. More recently, a novel line of research has been developed to determine to what extent visual experience is truly required to achieve a representation of the surrounding environment. Overall, the results of these studies indicate that most of the brain fine morphological and functional architecture is programmed to develop and function independently from any visual experience. Distinct cortical areas are able to process information in a supramodal fashion, that is, independently from the sensory modality that carries that information to the brain. These observations strongly support the hypothesis of a modality-independent, i.e. more abstract, cortical organization, and may contribute to explain how congenitally blind individuals may interact efficiently with an external world that they have never seen.
从早期开始，我们如何表达周围的世界一直是哲学思辨的问题。在过去的几十年里，现代神经科学，特别是用于大脑结构和功能探索的方法的发展，使得我们可以用创新的方法来研究旧的问题。在这篇简短的综述中，我们讨论了我们实验室和其他实验室在有视力的和先天性失明个体中进行的一系列大脑解剖和功能研究的主要发现。从历史上看，对“盲脑”的研究主要集中在感官剥夺后的跨模态可塑性变化上。最近，又出现了一条新的研究路线，旨在确定视觉经验对于实现周围环境的表示是否真的是必需的。总的来说，这些研究的结果表明，大脑的大部分精细形态和功能结构都是独立于任何视觉经验而编程发育和运作的。不同的皮质区域能够以超模态的方式处理信息，也就是说，独立于将信息传递到大脑的感觉模态。这些观察结果强烈支持了一种模态独立的、即更抽象的皮质组织的假说，并可能有助于解释先天性失明者如何能够有效地与他们从未见过的外部世界进行交互。
