Functional tuning for auditory motion direction in hMT+/v5 of sighted and blind individuals
(2017) 13th International Conference for Cognitive Neuroscience — Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands (5.August.2017)
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- Abstract
- The middle temporal visual area (hMT+/V5) is a region of the extrastriate occipital cortex that contains neurons coding for visual motion direction. Even if this region has been traditionally considered as purely visual, recent studies have suggested that part of the hMT+/V5 complex could also selectively respond to auditory motion in blind and even in sighted people. In our study, we characterized the brain activity of sighted and early blind individuals listening to left, right, up and down moving and static sounds. To create a vivid and ecological sensation of sound location/motion in external space, we relied on individual in-ear stereo recordings that were re-played to the participants when they were inside fMRI. Whole brain univariate results revealed that in addition to a dorsal fronto-temporo-parietal network, selectivity for auditory motion was observed in both blind and sighted in the anterior portion of the middle temporal gyrus. In contrast, more posterior middle temporal regions showed stronger auditory motion selectivity in the blind group, overlapping with regions selective for visual motion as independently localized in the sighted. Functional connectivity analyses seeding those auditory motion selective regions revealed that while the sighted group showed stronger connectivity with a fronto-parietal network, blind people had stronger connectivity with occipital regions. Importantly, we were able to decode auditory motion direction in visually defined hMT+/V5 in both groups, but significantly more in early blinds. Moreover, early blinds showed higher correlation between decoding accuracy in this region and the behavioral ability to discriminate auditory motion direction. All together, those results demonstrate that hMT+/V5 participate in processing auditory motion direction in both sighed and blind groups, but that functional tuning extends more posteriorly in case of early visual deprivation.
- Affiliations
University of Trento CIMeC
Citations
Battal, C., Rezk, M., Mattioni, S., Bottini, R., Occelli, V., Targher, S., & Collignon, O. (2017). Functional tuning for auditory motion direction in hMT+/v5 of sighted and blind individuals. 13th International Conference for Cognitive Neuroscience, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/213903