Blind people may use their visual cortex to regulate movement

The brain’s visual cortex may be reorganised to control movement in people who cannot see

By Jason Arunn Murugesu

The visual cortex, the part of the brain that receives information from the eyes, has been known to respond to sound or touch in people who are blind. Researchers have now shown it may be unwittingly repurposed to process movement.

“After the loss of vision, the visual cortex loses its primary purpose,” says Tsuyoshi Ikegami at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology in Japan. “It’s a waste of brain resources… so it’s an essential characteristic of our …