Cognitive Session VIII

SPECIFICITY OF LANGUAGE NETWORK IN THE CONTINGENTALLY BLIND BRAIN

Mirror invariance for objects and Braille letters in congenitally blind people; a behavioral and fMRI study 

Maksymilian Korczyk1, Katarzyna Rączy2, Marcin Szwed1 

1Department of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland 
2Institute of Psychology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany 

Abstract: Mirror-images of objects are recognized as the same object, but letters aren’t (“d” is not “b”). Studies show that the fusiform cortex is important in mirror discrimination in sighted for words and letters. Moreover, the congenitally blind could break mirror invariance for Braille letters like the sighted. Here, we investigated which neural mechanisms underlie this process. 
Nineteen congenitally blind adults participated in our experiments. First, they performed two behavioral same-different tactile comparison tasks. Stimuli were pairs of Braille letters, geometric shapes, and everyday objects (e.g., toothbrush) in same (“p” and “p”), mirror orientation (“p” and “q”), and different (“p” and “z”) pairs. In the fMRI part, Braille letters and everyday objects in the above-mentioned formats were presented in a priming paradigm. 
Behavior showed that subjects had shorter response-times and higher accuracy for Braille letters and objects than for shapes. fMRI results showed mirror priming for objects in the fusiform cortex. In addition, an early visual cortex area distinguished between the left-right orientation of Braille letters.  
Our results demonstrate that the fusiform cortex of the blind exhibits mirror invariance for objects similar to the one observed in the sighted. Mirror invariance for letters, however, occurs in the reorganized visual cortex.         

Funding:  This work was supported by the Polish National Science Centre (Grant Number 2018/30/A/HS6/00595) to M.S. 

Plasticity of grammatical and semantic processing networks in brains of congenitally blind individuals

Marta Urbaniak1,2, Małgorzata Paczyńska3, Łukasz Bola1 

1Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland 
2Graduate School for Social Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland  
3SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland 

Abstract: Language processing involves similar brain regions across languages and cultures. This observation might suggest that specific brain regions are hard-wired for language, and that language network can develop only in these regions. However, this view has been challenged by certain embodied cognition and neuroplasticity theories, which predict that different sensorimotor experience can lead to qualitatively different implementations of language in the brain. Here, we tested this prediction by studying language processing in sighted and congenitally blind individuals, that is, in two groups with systematically different sensorimotor experience. We enrolled 20 blind and 20 sighted participants in an fMRI experiment, in which they performed linguistic transformations of concrete nouns and verbs, abstract nouns and verbs, and pseudo nouns and verbs. We used multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) to reveal brain networks representing grammatical (nouns, verbs) and semantic (abstract, concrete, pseudo) characteristics of words. We observed between-group differences primarily in left frontal and temporal regions, known to be implicated in grammatical and semantic processing in sighted individuals. Thus, our findings suggest that differences in sensorimotor experience modify salience of specific linguistic representations in canonical language regions. However, an overall shape of the language network seems relatively robust to changes in sensorimotor experience.         

Funding: This work was supported by a National Science Center Poland grant (2020/37/B/HS6/01269) and a Polish National Center for Academic Exchange fellowship (BPN/SEL/2021/1/00004) awarded to Łukasz Bola. 

The perception of interoceptive signals in blind individuals 

Dominika Radziun1, Maksymilian Korczyk2, Laura Crucianelli1, Marcin Szwed2,  H. Henrik Ehrsson1 

1Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden 
2Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland 

Abstract: Visual deprivation is associated with massive cross-modal plasticity. Here, we examined the influence of blindness on two  sensory submodalities of interoception: cardiac interoception and affective touch. We tested 36 blind individuals and 36 age and sex-matched sighted volunteers. In experiment 1, we assessed their cardiac interoceptive abilities using the heartbeat counting task. In experiment 2, we measured perception of skin-mediated interoceptive signals by asking about the pleasantness of touch delivered in a C-tactile (CT) optimal versus a CT non-optimal manner, and also implemented a control task of discriminative touch abilities, the grating orientation task. We found that blind individuals perform significantly better than sighted in the task measuring their cardiac interoceptive accuracy. In the case of affective touch, we found that blind individuals rate the touch as significantly more pleasant on the palm as compared with the forearm. We also replicated the previous findings showing enhanced discriminative tactile acuity in the blind. We conclude that visual deprivation leads to enhanced interoception, which has important implications for the study of the extent of massive cross-modal plasticity after visual loss.

Funding:  This work was supported by the Polish National Science Centre (NCN; grant no: 2018/30/A/HS6/00595) and Swedish Research Council (VR; grant no: 2017-03135). Laura Crucianelli was supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Intra-European Individual Fellowship (grant no: 891175).

Decoding spoken words in brains of sighted and congenitally blind individuals

Łukasz Bola1, Marta Urbaniak1,2, Małgorzata Paczyńska3, Maria Kossowska1 

1Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland 
2Graduate School for Social Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
3SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland 

Abstract: Spoken word comprehension involves a wide network of frontal, parietal and temporal brain regions, primarily in the left hemisphere. Intriguingly, in blind individuals, listening to spoken words also activates the visual cortex. Here, we used fMRI and mutli-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) to address two questions: (1) Does visual cortex activation in blind individuals represents differences between specific spoken words? (2) Can spoken word representation be observed also in the visual cortex of sighted individuals? We studied 20 sighted and 17 congenitally blind participants listening to spoken words and making semantic decisions on word referents. We found that words can be decoded from primary visual cortex activation in both blind and sighted participants. Furthermore, searchlight analysis showed that brain networks representing differences between spoken words are overall very similar in both participant groups. We conclude that the overall shape of the spoken word comprehension network, as investigated with MVPA, is robust to changes in visual experience. We also suggest that visual cortex responses to spoken words, observed in blind individuals, might reflect an increase in visual cortex sensitivity to information that is typically represented in this region.  

Funding:  This work was supported by a National Science Center Poland grant (2020/37/B/HS6/01269) and a Polish National Center for Academic Exchange fellowship (BPN/SEL/2021/1/00004) awarded to Łukasz Bola. 

Functional involvement of occipital cortex during reading and speech processing in congenital blindness: 
evidence from fMRI and TMS

Jacek Matuszewski1,2, Łukasz Bola3, Olivier Collignon2,4,5, Artur Marchewka1 

1Laboratory of Brain Imaging, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland 
2Cross-modal Plasticity and Perception Lab, Institute for Research in Psychology (IPSY), Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Nueve, Belgium 
3Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland 
4School of Health Sciences, HES-SO Valais-Wallis, The Sense Innovation and Research Center, Lausanne, Switzerland 
5 Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Trento, Italy 

Abstract: Multiple studies have shown that the visual cortex of blind subjects responds to tactile or auditory stimuli in a functionally specific fashion. However, the degree of retained cortical functionality is still debated. Here, we are investigating the roles of the “visual” cortex of early blind and sighted people in reading and speech processing. Using fMRI we identified neuronal responses to words, pseudowords, and low-level sensory stimuli during reading and speech 1-back tasks. While the blind early visual cortex (EVC) responded to linguistic and simple sensory stimuli, activity in the left ventral occipitotemporal cortex (vOTC) was specific to language. Crucially, these patterns occurred both for tactile and auditory processing. Similar, reading-specific patterns were observed in sighted subjects, with no responses to auditory stimuli. Currently, we are using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to trace the information flow between low-level and higher-order visual areas. With 20Hz paired-pulse TMS, we are disrupting neuronal processing in the EVC and left vOTC during reading and speech processing. Therefore, this project investigates the sensory-specific hierarchy of information processing in the blind visual cortex. The results should contribute to a deeper understanding of the nature of the blind visual cortex in the context of currently discussed theoretical frameworks.         

Funding:  NCN Preludium 2017/27/N/HS6/02669

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