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Brain Advance Access published online on April 22, 2003
Brain, doi:10.1093/brain/awg152
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© 2003 The Guarantors of Brain

Article

Effects of visual deprivation on the organization of the semantic system

Uta Noppeney 1*, Karl J. Friston 1, Cathy J. Price 1

1 Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, University College London, UK

* Corresponding author. E-mail: u.noppeney{at}fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk.

Received 27 September 2002 ; revised 10 February 2003 ; accepted 15 February 2003

Abstract

Early onset blindness provides a lesion model to investigate whether experience-dependent mechanisms subtend the functional anatomy of semantic retrieval. In particular, visual deprivation might alter the neural systems underlying retrieval of semantic information that is acquired via visual experience. Using functional MRI, we demonstrate that both early blind and sighted subjects activate a left-lateralized fronto-temporal ‘core' semantic retrieval system and show common effects for retrieval of visually experienced semantic information. However, irrespective of the type of semantics, blind subjects activate additional extrastriate regions, which are coupled with frontal and temporal semantic regions. The resilience of semantic retrieval responses to visual deprivation suggests a considerable degree of innate and epigenetic specification of the semantic system. In contrast, the exuberant functional connectivity between extrastriate and ‘core' semantic retrieval regions might be explained by abnormal pruning processes during early neurodevelopment.

Keywords: blindness; cortical plasticity; functional imaging; semantic organization
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