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From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Brain rewires itself
Date: 01 Dec 1998 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <3663d462.0@news3.ibm.net>
References: <73vm47$p41$1@news1.rmi.net>
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John R. Bryan wrote in message <73vm47$p41$1@news1.rmi.net>...
>I hope that nobody has posted this tidbit yet (I'm 146 messages behind) in
>this newsgroup alone. Don't you people take vacations!!?
>
>Science and Medicine
>
>Brain rewires itself in deaf, blind people - study
>
>CHICAGO (Reuters) - Two university studies on deaf and blind people
released
>Monday provide further evidence that their brains "rewire" themselves to
>find uses for areas that would have been devoted to hearing or sight.
>Researchers at two U.S. universities used a procedure known as functional
>Magnetic Resonance Imaging to measure blood flow in the brains of deaf and
>blind people to show that areas associated with processing sounds and
images
>remained active. "This shows the brain does, essentially, rewire itself,"
>Victoria Morgan, a radiologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in
>Nashville, Tenn., said in a report to the Radiological Society of North
>America.
>
This is truly an important result, being confirmed for several years now.
The most recent I have is this:
Music Training Improves Verbal Memory
Agnes S. Chan, Yim-Chi Ho, Mei-Chun Cheung
Nature Vol 396, 12 Nov 1998, p. 128
Magnetic resonance imaging has shown that the left planum temporale region
of the brain is larger in musicians than in non-musicians. If this results
from a change in cortical organization, the left temporal area in musicians
might have a better developed cognitive function than the right temporal lobe.
Because verbal memory is mediated mainly by the left temporal lobe, and visual
memory by the right, adults with music training should have better verbal, but
not visual, memory than adults without such training. Here we show that adults
who received music training before the age of 12 have a better memory for
spoken words than those who did not. Music training in childhood may therefore
have long-term positive effects on verbal memory.
From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Brain rewires itself
Date: 02 Dec 1998 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <36652824.0@news3.ibm.net>
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John R. Bryan wrote in message <742agt$lvp$1@news1.rmi.net>...
>BTW, what happens if the lost sense returns? Does vision (e.g.) relocate
>somewhere else or does vision have to remain in the visual cortex and the
>improved sense diminish?
>
I don't have any references about this. What I suppose will happen is a
reduced initial performance of the returning sense and a gradual improvement
with time. Almost certainly vision will occupy again a large portion of
the visual cortex (occipital lobe) because this is where the thing
likes to grow to. Certainly the previously improved sense will diminish.
But until somebody relates a practical case, all this will be just
conjectures.
Regards,
Sergio Navega.
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