Changes in primary visual and auditory cortex of blind and sighted adults following 10 weeks of click-based echolocation training.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Non-randomized pre-post study without an untrained control group (by design analogy, non-clinical basic neuroscience).
PubMed 38897817 · doi:10.1093/cercor/bhae239
What was done
Twelve blind and 14 sighted adults underwent 10 weeks of click-based echolocation training. Structural and functional MRI was conducted before and after training in a pre-post design to measure brain changes in primary visual (V1) and auditory (A1) cortex in response to echoes and sound.
What was found
The abstract reports no numerical values, test statistics, or effect sizes. Echolocation training was reported to increase activation in left and right V1 in response to echoes across both blind and sighted participants. Both groups showed training-induced increases in right A1 activation to sounds generally, accompanied by increased gray matter density in right A1 in blind participants and in adjacent acoustic areas in sighted participants.
Why it matters
These findings suggest that adult human sensory cortex retains cross-modal neuroplastic potential, showing that visual cortex can recruit to process auditory echoes in sighted as well as blind individuals.
Limits
The sample size is small (n = 26 total: 12 blind, 14 sighted). The design lacked a separate untrained control group to rule out test-retest artifacts or non-specific time effects. The abstract contains no behavioral performance metrics or quantitative statistical values.
Cited by
- supports Sighted individuals can learn to echolocate if trained.