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Abstract:
There is an increasing number of studies showing that both
perceptual and higher cognitive functions reorganize after sensory
deprivation in humans. For example, studies employing event-related
brain potentials imply that blind people do not only process
language faster than sighted controls but that the cerebral
organization of language is altered as well. In order to obtain
more precise information about these brain activation differences
for language perception between congenitally blind and sighted
adults an fMRI study was performed in which participants listened
to normal sentences, pseudo-word sentences and backward speech.
During language processing an activation of the classical
perisylvian language areas was obtained in the blind as in the
sighted controls. However, while this activation was
left-lateralized in the sighted it was bilateral in the blind.
Moreover, only the blind showed significant activity in occipital
brain structures. The current results confirm and supplement
earlier electrophysiological studies in blind (and deaf) adults,
indicating that cerebral organization for language depends on early
input conditions.
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