Blind people’s visual cortex can help process touch and sound
In people born blind or blinded early, visual cortex territory is often recruited for touch, hearing, and language-related tasks — a dramatic example of cross-modal plasticity.
Brain scanners show those “visual” areas lighting up during Braille reading or sound localization that sighted brains handle elsewhere.
Unused real estate finds new tenants. The map is flexible enough that silence in the eyes can become sharper work for the fingers and ears.
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