Massive cortical reorganization in sighted Braille readers

• Published in: eLife Vol. 5; p. e10762
• Main Authors: Siuda-Krzywicka, Katarzyna, Bola, Łukasz, Paplińska, Małgorzata, Sumera, Ewa, Jednoróg, Katarzyna, Marchewka, Artur, Śliwińska, Magdalena W, Amedi, Amir, Szwed, Marcin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England eLife Sciences Publications Ltd 15.03.2016; eLife Sciences Publication; eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
• Subjects: Adult; Blindness; Brain Mapping; Brain research; Cortex (somatosensory); Experiments; Female; fMRI; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Humans; Laboratories; Language; Life Sciences; Magnetic fields; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Medical research; Neural networks; Neurobiology; Neuronal Plasticity; Neurons and Cognition; Neuroscience; Neurosciences; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; Reading; Somatosensory Cortex - physiology; somatosensory system; Touch; Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; Visual cortex; Visual Cortex - physiology; visual system; visual system; fMRI; somatosensory system; human; neuroscience
• DOI: 10.7554/eLife.10762
• ISSN: 2050-084X

The brain is capable of large-scale reorganization in blindness or after massive injury. Such reorganization crosses the division into separate sensory cortices (visual, somatosensory...). As its result, the visual cortex of the blind becomes active during tactile Braille reading. Although the possibility of such reorganization in the normal, adult brain has been raised, definitive evidence has been lacking. Here, we demonstrate such extensive reorganization in normal, sighted adults who learned Braille while their brain activity was investigated with fMRI and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Subjects showed enhanced activity for tactile reading in the visual cortex, including the visual word form area (VWFA) that was modulated by their Braille reading speed and strengthened resting-state connectivity between visual and somatosensory cortices. Moreover, TMS disruption of VWFA activity decreased their tactile reading accuracy. Our results indicate that large-scale reorganization is a viable mechanism recruited when learning complex skills. According to most textbooks, our brain is divided into separate areas that are dedicated to specific senses. We have a visual cortex for vision, a tactile cortex for touch, and so on. However, researchers suspect that this division might not be as fixed as the textbooks say. For example, blind people can switch their 'leftover' visual cortex to non-visual purposes, such as reading Braille – a tactile alphabet. Can this switch in functional organization also happen in healthy people with normal vision? To investigate this, Siuda-Krzywicka, Bola et al. taught a group of healthy, sighted people to read Braille by touch, and monitored the changes in brain activity that this caused using a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging. According to textbooks, tactile reading should engage the tactile cortex. Yet, the experiment revealed that the brain activity critical for reading Braille by touch did not occur in the volunteers’ tactile cortex, but in their visual cortex. Further experiments used a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation to suppress the activity of the visual cortex of the volunteers. This impaired their ability to read Braille by touch. This is a clear-cut proof that sighted adults can re-program their visual cortex for non-visual, tactile purposes. These results show that intensive training in a complex task can overcome the sensory division-of-labor of our brain. This indicates that our brain is much more flexible than previously thought, and that such flexibility might occur when we learn everyday, complex skills such as driving a car or playing a musical instrument. The next question that follows from this work is: what enables the brain’s activity to change after learning to read Braille? To understand this, Siuda-Krzywicka, Bola et al. are currently exploring how the physical structure of the brain changes as a result of a person acquiring the ability to read Braille by touch.