Neurology Medical News about fusiform gyrus;primary visual cortex;enhanced speech perception;blind listener

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Enhanced speech perception capabilities in a blind listener are associated with activation of fusiform gyrus and primary visual cortex
Neurocase, 03/02/09

Hertrich I et al. – Blind persons may learn to understand ultra-fast synthetic speech at a rate of up to ~25 syllables/second (syl)/s, a rate far exceeding the maximum performance level of normal-sighted listeners (8-10 syl/s).

Methods

Measurement of hemodynamic brain activation during listening to moderately- (8 syl/s) and ultra-fast speech (16 syl/s)
Assessment of 1 blind subject and 6 normal-sighted controls

Results

Moderately-fast speech activated posterior and anterior 'language zones' in all subjects
Ultra-fast speech for controls exclusively activated supratemporal regions
Ultra-fast speech for the blind subject enhanced left inferior frontal and temporoparietal responses and showed significant hemodynamic activation of left fusiform gyrus (FG) and right primary visual cortex
The left FG may serve as a functional link betweeen central-auditory and -visual systems as this structure is known to be involved in phonologic processing

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