Kujala T, Huotilainen M, Sinkkonen J, Ahonen A I, Alho K, Hämäläinen M S, Ilmoniemi R J, Kajola M, Knuutila J E, Lavikainen J
Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Finland.
Neurosci Lett. 1995 Jan 2;183(1-2):143-6. doi: 10.1016/0304-3940(94)11135-6.
We used a whole-scalp magnetometer with 122 planar gradiometers to study the activity of the visual cortex of five blind humans deprived of visual input since early infancy. Magnetic responses were recorded to pitch changes in a sound sequence when the subjects were either counting these changes or ignoring the stimuli. In two of the blind subjects, magnetic resonance images were also obtained, showing normal visual cortex macroanatomy. In these subjects, the magnetic responses to counted pitch changes were located at visual and temporal cortices whereas ignored pitch changes activated the temporal cortices almost exclusively. Also in two of the other three blind, the visual-cortex activation was detectable in the auditory counting task. Our results suggest that the visual cortex of blind humans can participate in auditory discrimination.
我们使用一台带有122个平面梯度仪的全头皮磁强计，研究了五名自婴儿早期就丧失视觉输入的盲人的视觉皮层活动。当受试者对声音序列中的音高变化进行计数或忽略这些刺激时，记录其磁反应。在两名盲人受试者中，还获取了磁共振图像，显示视觉皮层大体解剖结构正常。在这些受试者中，对计数的音高变化的磁反应位于视觉和颞叶皮层，而被忽略的音高变化几乎只激活颞叶皮层。在另外三名盲人中的两名，在听觉计数任务中也可检测到视觉皮层激活。我们的结果表明，盲人的视觉皮层可以参与听觉辨别。
