Video means I see in Latin
Some blind people are able to use the sound of echoes to “see” where things are and to navigate their environment. Now, a new study finds that these people may even be using visual parts of their brains to process the sounds.
Echolocation is best known in bats, who send out high-pitched sounds and then use the echoes to track their prey in the dark. But a select few blind people use echolocation as well, making clicking sounds with their tongues to tell them where obstacles are. The new study, published May 25 in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, is the first to peer into the brains of blind people who are doing just that.
The study finds that in two blind men who can echolocate, brain areas normally associated with vision activate when they listen to recordings of themselves echolocating.
photo { Victor de Mello | Hannah Marshall, Autumn/Winter 08-09 }
