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Finger representation in the cortex of the congenitally blind

View ORCID ProfileD.B. Wesselink, View ORCID ProfileS. Kikkert, View ORCID ProfileH. Bridge, View ORCID ProfileT.R. Makin
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.16.435392
D.B. Wesselink
1Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, University of Oxford, Oxford (UK)
2Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London (UK)
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S. Kikkert
1Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, University of Oxford, Oxford (UK)
3Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich, Zürich (CH)
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H. Bridge
1Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, University of Oxford, Oxford (UK)
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T.R. Makin
1Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, University of Oxford, Oxford (UK)
2Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London (UK)
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  • For correspondence: t.makin@ucl.ac.uk
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Abstract

Hand representation in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) is thought to be shaped by experience. Individuals with congenital blindness rely on their sense of touch for completing daily tasks that in sighted people would be informed by vision, and possess superior tactile acuity. It has therefore been proposed that their S1 hand representation should differ from that of sighted individuals. Alternatively, it has been proposed that the improved tactile acuity in blind individuals is due to cross-modal plasticity, when regions in the occipital and temporal cortex are typically used for processing vision become activated by touch. We probed finger representation using psychophysics and 7T fMRI (1 mm3 resolution) in three individuals with bilateral anophthalmia, a rare condition in which both eyes fail to develop, as well as sighted controls. Despite anophthalmic individuals’ increased reliance on touch and superior tactile acuity, we found no evidence that they had more pronounced hand representation in S1. This is in line with recent research highlighting the stability of early sensory cortex, despite altered sensorimotor experience in adulthood. Unlike sighted controls, anophthalmic individuals activated the left human middle temporal complex (hMT+) during finger movement. This area did not express any hallmark of typical sensorimotor organisation, suggesting this and previously reported activity does not indicate low-level sensorimotor hand representation. However, left hMT+ contained some single finger information, beyond that found in sighted controls. This latter finding suggests that when the developmentally flexible area hMT+ is unaffected by retinal input, it can acquire novel cross-modal processes, which are potentially unrelated to the area’s function in sighted people. As such, our findings highlight the opportunity for other organising principles, beyond domain specific plasticity, in shaping cross-modal reorganisation.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted March 17, 2021.
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Finger representation in the cortex of the congenitally blind
D.B. Wesselink, S. Kikkert, H. Bridge, T.R. Makin
bioRxiv 2021.03.16.435392; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.16.435392
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Finger representation in the cortex of the congenitally blind
D.B. Wesselink, S. Kikkert, H. Bridge, T.R. Makin
bioRxiv 2021.03.16.435392; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.16.435392

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