Israeli neuroscientists train 50-year-old man, blind from birth, to recognize visual images via sensory substitution.
Israeli neuroscientists trained a 50-year-old man, blind from birth, to recognize objects using a sensory substitution algorithm called EyeMusic.
Developed by Prof. Amir Amedi, founding director of the Baruch Ivcher Institute for Brain, Cognition & Technology at IDC Herzliya, EyeMusic converts visual stimuli into “soundscapes” — sound units that convey information about geometric shapes.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging of the man’s brain before and after he learned to recognize soundscapes revealed that neural circuits in his brain had formed “topographic maps” previously thought incapable of forming after infancy.
“The human brain is indeed more plastic during infancy, but it maintains an enormous potential for reprogramming throughout a person’s life,” said Amedi, who did groundbreaking research into sensory substitution devices at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before joining IDC in 2019.
The latest study, reported in the journal NeuroImage, provides new evidence of the brain’s ability to change. It holds out promise that people can be trained to restore lost function, for example after a stroke.
