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Brief Communication

Nature Neuroscience 4, 1171–1173 (1 December 2001) | doi:10.1038/nn763

Visual stimuli activate auditory cortex in the deaf

Eva M. Finney , Ione Fine & Karen R. Dobkins

Previous brain imaging studies have demonstrated responses to tactile and auditory stimuli in visual cortex of blind subjects, suggesting that removal of one sensory modality leads to neural reorganization of the remaining modalities. To investigate whether similar 'cross-modal' plasticity occurs in human auditory cortex, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure visually evoked activity in auditory areas of both early-deafened and hearing individuals.