Naslov
Neurophysiological mechanisms underlying plastic changes and rehabilitation following sensory loss

Autori
Striem-Amit, Ella ; Bubić, Andreja ; Amedi, Amir

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Poglavlja u knjigama, znanstveni

Knjiga
The Neural Bases of Multisensory Processes

Urednik/ci
Murray, Micah ; Wallace, Mark

Izdavač
CRC Press ; Taylor & Francis

Grad
Boca Raton (FL)

Godina
2012

Raspon stranica
395-422

ISBN
978-1-4398-1217-4

Ključne riječi
blindness, neuroplasticity, sensory substitution, visual processing

Sažetak
Restoration of sight in the blind or audition in the deaf involves great clinical and scientific challenges. Despite intensive efforts and some successes, restoration of truly functional sensory modalities using auditory neuroprostheses is still limited and for visual neuroprostheses has not yet been achieved. This failure can be strongly attributed to the fact that sensory loss typically triggers extensive plastic changes in the nervous system as a whole which are still beyond our comprehension and control. This chapter focuses on integrating current knowledge about brain plasticity with existing rehabilitation approaches aimed at compensating for sensory loss. Although we will occasionally discuss different sensory systems, this chapter will primarily deal with vision as a modality which serves as our most prominent interface with the environment. We will present rehabilitation techniques for the blind which are currently at the frontier of medical, technological and clinical efforts, namely sensory substitution as well as clinical ophthalmologic and neuroprosthetic engineering approaches. Special emphasis will be placed on lowcost sensory substitution devices (SSD) which use artificial receptors and humanmachine interfaces to capture and transmit visual information to the brains of the blind using nonvisual sensory systems. We argue that the efficient use of novel and potentially highly valuable information provided by SSDs can play a major role in improving mobility, object recognition and other everyday functions in the blind. Furthermore, we suggest that this improvement is, at least partly, mediated by neuroplastic changes induced by the use of SSDs. Understanding these changes and their underlying mechanisms is not just important for practical rehabilitation purposes, but is also of significant theoretical interest, as it may provide novel and valuable insights, e.g. in the fields of brain plasticity and multisensory integration.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Temeljne medicinske znanosti, Psihologija

POVEZANOST RADA