UC Berkeley

Early blindness results in alterations in the neural responses to auditory stimuli. Here we show that even moderately reduced vision in one eye early in life is sufficient to induce neural plastic changes in voice processing. We asked individuals with reduced visual acuity in one eye due to amblyopia to attend to vocal cues during electroencephalogram recording. We found enhanced frontal auditory responses at 125 ms-225 ms, which were correlated with reduced vision in the amblyopic eye, but not the fellow eye. Our results indicate intramodal reorganization, typically observed after congenital profound visual deprivation.