The fine-scale functional correlation of striate cortex in sighted and blind people

J Neurosci. 2013 Oct 9;33(41):16209-19. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0363-13.2013.

Abstract

To what extent are spontaneous neural signals within striate cortex organized by vision? We examined the fine-scale pattern of striate cortex correlations within and between hemispheres in rest-state BOLD fMRI data from sighted and blind people. In the sighted, we find that corticocortico correlation is well modeled as a Gaussian point-spread function across millimeters of striate cortical surface, rather than degrees of visual angle. Blindness produces a subtle change in the pattern of fine-scale striate correlations between hemispheres. Across participants blind before the age of 18, the degree of pattern alteration covaries with the strength of long-range correlation between left striate cortex and Broca's area. This suggests that early blindness exchanges local, vision-driven pattern synchrony of the striate cortices for long-range functional correlations potentially related to cross-modal representation.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Blindness / physiopathology*
  • Brain Mapping*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Neural Pathways / physiopathology
  • Visual Cortex / physiopathology*
  • Young Adult