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Some bats with poor eyesight depend on echolocation to navigate. They emit squeaks and gauge their environment based on the echo returned. Dolphins and shrews use it, too. And humans.
A few blind people have mastered echolocation in order to sense their surroundings. One famous example, Ben Underwood—who lost his sight when he was two—could skateboard, run, even play basketball by clicking his tongue rapidly.
And now scientists have learned that the area of the brain that processes the echoes is not the region for hearing—it’s actually the visual cortex. The research is in the journal Public Library of Science ONE.
Two blind subjects used clicks and their echoes to distinguish objects like a car, tree or flagpole. Researchers made recordings of the echoes with tiny microphones placed inside subjects’ ears. Then they studied the subjects’ brain activity while they played back the recordings.
The subjects were not only able to tell which objects matched which echo pattern, but the brain tracking revealed the visual cortex activity when the subjects heard the echoed clicks. Sighted subjects showed no such activity. And once again we learn that the brain is far more flexible than it thought.
—Christie Nicholson
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6 Comments
Add CommentYeah... I think I saw something about this on the radio.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah... I think I saw something about this on the radio.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah, I didn't see that coming!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"the area of the brain that processes the echoes is not the region for hearing—it’s actually the visual cortex"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's hard to know without looking at the study, but I suspect that auditory cortex is also recruited for this task. If this is the case, I wonder if we would see increased connectivity between auditory and visual cortices in these subjects? I'm not too familiar with DTI, but if this technique were suitable for such measurements it could make for an interesting follow-up study.
I can exchange voice, video, smell, people can move small move muscles on my body from distance and much more
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisand all messages from me are transmitted to big number of people so I am a Mental Radio.
I never found any document about any other existing person in human history like myself, but
science never did serious research on me and I actually did not exist in world of science.
I could easy give evidence for telepathy.Maybe some of Neurologist or scientist
could help me or is maybe interesting to make research on my phenomena.
I believe what you are describing is the art of being delusional.
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