Topic: Visual Deprivation

Within the broad theme of brain plasticity, this work explores a dimension that has not received as much research attention thus far - activity dependent changes in myelin. Myelin acts to speed up axonal conduction. Until recently, the dogma of the field was that myelination was part of a developmental program that set up the neural circuitry, after which it remained static; however, the past decade of research has begun to reveal that myelin plasticity continues well into adulthood, is modulated in an activity dependent manner, and contributes to skill learning. The first part of our study is

Cross-modal recruitment of visual cortical areas by auditory and somatosensory stimulation have often been reported in early blind humans. However, lower resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) between visual and somatosensory and auditory cortical areas and weaker interhemispheric rsFC have been reported in blind humans. Moreover, rsFC is more variable in blind individuals than in sighted controls. Cross-modal recruitment of visual cortical areas has also been shown in mice. Cross-modal activation involves modifications of the excitatory/inhibitory balance, rather than establishing new c