Visual experiences are not linked to understanding of numbers

Visual experiences are not linked to understanding of numbers
The number network in brain develops totally independently of visual experience.

For the study, the team involved congenitally blind people and sighted people wearing blindfolds to solve math equations and answer language questions while having a brain scan. With the math problems, participants heard pairs of increasingly complicated recorded equations and responded if the value for ‘x’ was the same or different. The participants also heard pairs of sentences and responded if the meaning of the sentences was the same or different.With both blind and sighted participants, the key brain network involved in numerical reasoning, the intraparietal sulcus, responded robustly as participants considered the math problems.Meanwhile, in blind participants only, regions of the visual cortex also responded as they did math. And the visual cortex did not merely respond, the more complicated the math, the greater the activity was in the vision centre.In addition, the study demonstrated that this re-purposed vision centre in blind people was not just responding to new functions haphazardly. But, the region has become specialised and segmented by function, like any other part of the brain. While some parts of the cortex are doing math, other parts are doing language, etc. Even in a resting state, brain scans show these new brain regions connect to traditional parts of the brain responsible for math and language in sighted people, the researchers concluded.The findings were published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.(Read: A small protein can cause vision loss and blindness in diabetics) (Also read: W hat you don’t know about retinal detachment could make you go blind!)

Source:IANS

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