Rita E. Loiotile

The paper investigates whether deafferented visual cortices of blind individuals represent common spatial maps of naturalistic auditory stimuli, finding shared cross-subject pattern similarity in visual cortex for meaningful stimuli.

The paper uses fMRI to compare cross-modal responses in visual cortex of congenitally blind, adult-onset blind, and sighted individuals, finding that visual cortex plasticity for auditory processing occurs only in those born blind.

The paper shows that in congenitally blind adults, 'visual' cortices respond to executive demands, mirroring fronto-parietal patterns and suggesting top-down reorganization.