Unit for Visually Impaired People, Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Enrico Melen 83, 16152, Genoa, Italy.
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2022 Nov 9;12(1):19036. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-22224-x.
It is evident that the brain is capable of large-scale reorganization following sensory deprivation, but the extent of such reorganization is to date, not clear. The auditory modality is the most accurate to represent temporal information, and deafness is an ideal clinical condition to study the reorganization of temporal representation when the audio signal is not available. Here we show that hearing, but not deaf individuals, show a strong ERP response to visual stimuli in temporal areas during a time-bisection task. This ERP response appears 50-90 ms after the flash and recalls some aspects of the N1 ERP component usually elicited by auditory stimuli. The same ERP is not evident for a visual space-bisection task, suggesting that the early recruitment of temporal cortex is specific for building a highly resolved temporal representation within the visual modality. These findings provide evidence that the lack of auditory input can interfere with typical development of complex visual temporal representations.
显然，大脑在感官剥夺后能够进行大规模的重组，但迄今为止，这种重组的程度尚不清楚。听觉是最准确的时间信息表示方式，而耳聋是一种理想的临床条件，可以在音频信号不可用时研究时间表示的重组。在这里，我们表明，只有听力正常的人而不是耳聋的人在时间二分任务中表现出对视觉刺激的强 ERP 反应，这种 ERP 反应出现在闪光后 50-90 毫秒，并且召回了通常由听觉刺激引起的 N1 ERP 成分的某些方面。对于视觉空间二分任务，相同的 ERP 并不明显，这表明时间皮质的早期募集是专门用于在视觉模态中建立高度分辨的时间表示的。这些发现提供了证据表明缺乏听觉输入会干扰复杂的视觉时间表示的典型发展。
