期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2017
卷号：114
期号：31
页码：E6437-E6446
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1618287114
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Brain systems supporting face and voice processing both contribute to the extraction of important information for social interaction (e.g., person identity). How does the brain reorganize when one of these channels is absent? Here, we explore this question by combining behavioral and multimodal neuroimaging measures (magneto-encephalography and functional imaging) in a group of early deaf humans. We show enhanced selective neural response for faces and for individual face coding in a specific region of the auditory cortex that is typically specialized for voice perception in hearing individuals. In this region, selectivity to face signals emerges early in the visual processing hierarchy, shortly after typical face-selective responses in the ventral visual pathway. Functional and effective connectivity analyses suggest reorganization in long-range connections from early visual areas to the face-selective temporal area in individuals with early and profound deafness. Altogether, these observations demonstrate that regions that typically specialize for voice processing in the hearing brain preferentially reorganize for face processing in born-deaf people. Our results support the idea that cross-modal plasticity in the case of early sensory deprivation relates to the original functional specialization of the reorganized brain regions.
