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Visual cortex activation induced by tactile stimulation in late-blind individuals with retinitis pigmentosa

The inter-subject variability of visual cortex reorganization was assessed in late-blind subjects suffering from retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a degenerative retinal disease that results in tunnel vision and eventual loss of sight. fMRI BOLD responses were measured as blindfolded RP and blindfolded sighted control groups completed a tactile discrimination task (in which subjects determined the relative roughness of sandpaper discs) during successive scans in a 3T Siemens scanner. Resulting activation patterns were compared between the two groups in a whole-brain analysis. We found that vision deprivation leads to elevated activation of the visual cortex elicited with tactile stimuli, and the degree of activation correlates with the degree of visual field loss: higher visual cortex activation is associated with greater vision loss. The location of vision loss in the visual field also correlates with the location of tactile responses in the visual cortex, with greater peripheral vision loss leading to stronger activation in the peripheral of V1. Visual cortex responses to tactile stimuli may hence be used as a diagnostic marker in determining the extent of an individual's vision loss and tracking sight recovery following treatments.