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individual who are bear indifferent employ the " hearing " part of their brain to feel cutaneous senses and to see objects , suggest new research that highlight the malleability of the human brain .
The new study , detailed online July 11 in The Journal of Neuroscience , shows that indifferent masses use the so - calledauditory cortexto mental process both touch and visual input much more than learn individuals do .
Those who are born deaf may process touch using the brain’s auditory cortex to a greater extent than hearing individuals.
" This research shows how thebrain is equal to of rewiringin dramatic ways , " Dr. James Battey , Jr. , director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders , enunciate in a assertion . " This will be of greatinterest to other researchers who are canvas multisensory processing in the brain . "
preceding research has evoke indifferent people may use their brains differently than those deport with sense of hearing . For instance , researchers foundwhen deaf individuals are signing , they rely on the same encephalon areas that interpret spoken language , advise that something about nomenclature is universal .
Another study has depict that those deport deaf are good at process peripheral sight and motion , the investigator noted . Perhaps , the researchers said , deaf individuals use several brain region , in particular auditory 1 , to serve imagination . But would deafness also affect how the brain work tactual sensation and vision together ? This has been a elusive one to answer , say the researchers , because in the science lab , it ’s tricky to produce precise tactile stimulant . [ Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind ]
In the new study , participants wore headphonelike devices developed by the researchers while inside a working magnetized resonance imaging ( MRI ) electronic scanner , a type of brain scan that reveals roue menses to active areas of the brainiac . Touch stimuli come up in the form of soundless puffs of gentle wind delivered via flexible tube to above the ripe eyebrow and to the buttock below the right eye ; fibre - optic cable length deliver abbreviated pulses of light ( ocular stimuli ) .
The research worker measured this rake flow particularly in the Heschl ’s gyrus , a area in the master audile pallium where sound first reaches the brain .
" We designed this study because we think that trace and vision might have stronger interactions in the auditive cortices of deaf people , " study researcher Christina Karns , of the Brain Development Lab at the University of Oregon , say in a statement . " As it call on out , the chief audile pallium in multitude who are deeply deaf focuses on spot , even more than vision , in our experiment . "
If , in fact , touch and vision interact more in the brainiac of deaf people , perhaps , the researchers say , touch could be used to help these studentslearn mathor interpretation . In addition , if scientist could assess how much the auditory cortex has been hijack for other sensory processing , they might be able to figure out how to retrain the brain to devote more capacity to auditive processing instead .
