TITLE:
Cross-modal connectivity of the secondary auditory cortex with higher visual area in the congenitally deaf—A case study
AUTHORS:
Yul-Wan Sung, Seiji Ogawa
KEYWORDS:
Deaf; Visual Language Processing;Functional MRI; Fusiform Gyrus; Auditory Cortical Areas
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering,
Vol.6 No.3A,
March
29,
2013
ABSTRACT: It
is well known that auditory cortical areas are activated by visual
stimulation in the deaf. However, it is not known whether the information
enters from the primary visual area or high-level visual areas. In this study,
we used visual language stimulation to examine visual-auditory functional
connectivity. For this, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in
a congenitally deaf subject to localize areas in the auditory cortex that
showed cross-modal reorganization for the processing of visual language inputs
and estimate areas in the visual ventral stream, from which language signal
inputs enter the auditory areas in the congenitally deaf. We found that the anterior
region of the secondary auditory cortex in the superior temporal gyrus showed
language-specific activation and that the visual inputs into the area were
from the fusiform gyrus, which is a high-level visual area.