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The Journal of Neuroscience, 0000, 20:RC93:1-6

RAPID COMMUNICATION
Visual Attention to the Periphery Is Enhanced in Congenitally Deaf Individuals

D. Bavelier¹, A. Tomann¹, C. Hutton², T. Mitchell³, D. Corina⁴, G. Liu⁵, and H. Neville³

¹ University of Rochester, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Rochester, New York 14627-0268, ² The Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, Institute of Neurology, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom, ³ Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403-1227, ⁴ University of Washington, Department of Psychology, Seattle, Washington 98125, and ⁵ Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. 20007

We compared normally hearing individuals and congenitally deaf individuals as they monitored moving stimuli either in the periphery or in the center of the visual field. When participants monitored the peripheral visual field, greater recruitment (as measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging) of the motion-selective area MT/MST was observed in deaf than in hearing individuals, whereas the two groups were comparable when attending to the central visual field. This finding indicates an enhancement of visual attention to peripheral visual space in deaf individuals. Structural equation modeling was used to further characterize the nature of this plastic change in the deaf. The effective connectivity between MT/MST and the posterior parietal cortex was stronger in deaf than in hearing individuals during peripheral but not central attention. Thus, enhanced peripheral attention to moving stimuli in the deaf may be mediated by alterations of the connectivity between MT/MST and the parietal cortex, one of the primary centers for spatial representation and attention.

Key words: plasticity; visual attention; motion; deafness; fMRI; structural equation modeling; MT/MST-V5

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Copyright © 0000 Society for Neuroscience  0270-6474/00/$05.00/0

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