Psychology Department, School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
Laboratory of Neuropsychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, CHINA; Laboratory of Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, CHINA; The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Neuroimage Clin. 2019;24:102041. doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2019.102041. Epub 2019 Oct 18.
Cross-modal occipital responses appear to be essential for nonvisual processing in individuals with early blindness. However, it is not clear whether the recruitment of occipital regions depends on functional domain or sensory modality. The current study utilized a coordinate-based meta-analysis to identify the distinct brain regions involved in the functional domains of object, spatial/motion, and language processing and the common brain regions involved in both auditory and tactile modalities in individuals with early blindness. Following the PRISMA guidelines, a total of 55 studies were included in the meta-analysis. The specific analyses revealed the brain regions that are consistently recruited for each function, such as the dorsal fronto-parietal network for spatial function and ventral occipito-temporal network for object function. This is consistent with the literature, suggesting that the two visual streams are preserved in early blind individuals. The contrast analyses found specific activations in the left cuneus and lingual gyrus for language function. This finding is novel and suggests a reverse hierarchical organization of the visual cortex for early blind individuals. The conjunction analyses found common activations in the right middle temporal gyrus, right precuneus and a left parieto-occipital region. Clinically, this work contributes to visual rehabilitation in early blind individuals by revealing the function-dependent and sensory-independent networks during nonvisual processing.
跨模态枕叶反应似乎是早期失明个体进行非视觉加工所必需的。然而，枕叶区域的募集是否依赖于功能域或感觉模态尚不清楚。本研究采用基于坐标的荟萃分析来确定早期失明个体在物体、空间/运动和语言处理的功能域以及听觉和触觉模态共有的特定脑区。根据 PRISMA 指南，共有 55 项研究纳入荟萃分析。具体分析揭示了每个功能一致募集的脑区，例如空间功能的背侧额顶网络和物体功能的腹侧枕颞网络。这与文献一致，表明早期失明个体保留了两个视觉流。对比分析发现语言功能的左侧楔叶和舌回有特定的激活。这一发现是新颖的，表明早期失明个体的视觉皮层呈反向层次组织。联合分析发现右颞中回、右楔前叶和左顶枕叶区域有共同激活。从临床角度来看，这项工作通过揭示非视觉处理过程中依赖功能和独立于感觉的网络，为早期失明个体的视觉康复做出了贡献。
