People born deaf is able to reprogram his brain areas assigned to the hearing to improve their vision, says a study.
both the deaf and the blind often claim that, to compensate, his other senses are more acute.
However, until now no one knew how this process could be cerebral.
The improvement in peripheral vision, which often claim to have the deaf, could be generated in the brain area which normally handles peripheral ear.
Scientists at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, devoted to test that theory and, in the report on the results reported by the journal Nature Neuroscience, suggest that the brain tends to realize its potential.
The researchers used cats with congenital deafness
to test which parts of the brain dealing with this compensation.
The animals were tested in which the lights flashed on the periphery of normal vision.
When the auditory cortex -Part of the brain that normally process sound information, are temporarily disabled, improved peripheral vision of the cats also seemed off.
In a further study, the team discovered that the part of the auditory cortex was responsible for the normally designed to detect peripheral sounds.
As explained by Dr. Stephen Lombe, who led the investigation, "the brain is very efficient and does not allow any of its space is wasted."
"The brain wants to compensate for the lost sense with improvements in other areas that are beneficial."
"For example, if you are deaf, would benefit from your peripheral vision to see a car approaching from afar. He can not hear the car approaching the side, it can see sharper, and detect how fast is moving, "said the scientist.
He adds that understanding what happens in the auditory cortex in the absence of sound information can help doctors understand what happens when a person with hearing loss undergo a cochlear implant.
"If the brain to reprogram itself to compensate for the hearing, what happens when you restore your ear?" asks Dr. Lombard.
Dr. Joanna Robinson, a researcher at the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) in the UK, receives the results of the study positively.
"This research," she says supports previous studies that say that people with congenital deafness have a larger field of view that people can hear. "
"Other studies we fund last year showed that deaf adults may also react to objects in your peripheral vision
faster than adults do listen, but children deaf react more slowly than their peers who listen. "
" This indicates that perhaps takes some time for the audio portion of the brain succeed in making the change to clear and process visual information, "said the expert.
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