Some blind can see with ears--study

The findings of the study have been published in the March 15 issue of 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.'

Dr. Olivier Collignon of the University of Montreal's Saint-Justine Hospital Research Centre teamed up with Dr. Franco Lepore of the Centre for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognition to compare the brain activity of people who can see with those who are born blind.

Blind have advanced sound perception
The findings of the study add to a growing body of evidence of evidence that suggests that the blind have can perceive sound better and possess the ability of space perception.

"Although several studies have shown occipital regions of people who were born blind to be involved in nonvisual processing, whether the functional organization of the visual cortex observed in sighted individuals is maintained in the rewired occipital regions of the blind has only been recently investigated," Collignon said.

The visual cortex, as the name implies, is part of the brain that deals with processing vision. It is located at the back on either side of the brain, known as the occipital lobe.

Research shows brain's amazing flexibility
Collignon went on to say that their research has unveiled that some regions of the right dorsal occipital stream don't need visual experience in order to develop a specialization for space perception. He said that it is already present in the brain network.

The research involved a group of 11 people who were born blind and 11 people who were not. The brain activity of the two groups was studied using MRI scanning when they were subjected to a cascade of tones.

The researchers believe that the study highlights the amazing plasticity and flexibility of the brain.