Researchers from KU Leuven in Belgium have found those who are born blind use a "brain map" to categorize visual observations just like those who are sighted do, however, they do it in a different way.
According to researchers, the ventral temporal cortex — or visual brain — is like a map, divided into different regions that can recognize different types of visual observances, such as faces, body parts, scenes and objects. However, it is unknown whether this "brain map" is something a person is born with or its developed based in the visual input they receive.
To test their theory, researchers reportedly asked participants who were born blind — meaning they had never processed any visual information — to listen to sounds from the four "brain map" categories. For example, they reportedly heard laughing, kissing, and lip smacking for faces; hand clapping and footsteps for body parts; forest and beach sounds for scenes; and a clock, washing machine, and car for objects.
During the experiment, researchers used a scanner to measure the activity in their visual brain and found while their visual brain responds in a different way to each category, those who are blind also use the "map" in the visual brain to differentiate between categories despite not having any visual input.
The study was recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
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