Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32559449›Full record

ArticleCurrent biology : CB2020

Decoding Natural Sounds in Early "Visual" Cortex of Congenitally Blind Individuals.

Petra Vetter, Łukasz Bola, Lior Reich, Matthew Bennett, Lars Muckli, Amir Amedi

Open access · hybridAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Current biology : CB, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
33citing papers in PubMed
10.8field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

33 citing papers in PubMed, 137 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
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  6. Decoding semantic sound categories in early visual cortex.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025
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  7. Review
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  10. Review
  11. Review
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. A Whole-Brain Topographic Ontology.Annual review of neuroscience · 2024
    Review
  15. Article
  16. Decoding Reach Direction in Early "Visual" Cortex of Congenitally Blind Individuals.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023
    Article
  17. Article
  18. Reading Braille by Touch Recruits Posterior Parietal Cortex.Journal of cognitive neuroscience · 2023
    Article
  19. Article
  20. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.

Petra VetterDepartment of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham Hill, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK. Electronic address: petra.vetter@rhul.ac.uk.
Łukasz BolaInstitute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, ul. Ingardena 6, 30-060 Kraków, Poland; Department of Psychology, Harvard University, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Lior ReichDepartment of Medical Neurobiology, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University Jerusalem, Ein Kerem, PO Box 12271, Jerusalem 91120, Israel.
Matthew BennettInstitute of Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, 62 Hillhead Street, Glasgow G12 8QB, UK.
Lars MuckliInstitute of Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, 62 Hillhead Street, Glasgow G12 8QB, UK.
Amir AmediDepartment of Medical Neurobiology, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University Jerusalem, Ein Kerem, PO Box 12271, Jerusalem 91120, Israel; The Baruch Ivcher Institute for Brain, Cognition & Technology, The Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Reichman University, PO Box 167, Herzliya 461010, Israel.
University of Glasgow · GBHebrew University of Jerusalem · ILInstitute of Psychology · PLReichman University · ILRoyal Holloway University of London · GB

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Complex natural sounds, such as bird singing, people talking, or traffic noise, induce decodable fMRI activation patterns in early visual cortex of sighted blindfolded participants [1]. That is, early visual cortex receives non-visual and potentially predictive information from audition. However, it is unclear whether the transfer of auditory information to early visual areas is an epiphenomenon of visual imagery or, alternatively, whether it is driven by mechanisms independent from visual experience. Here, we show that we can decode natural sounds from activity patterns in early "visual" areas of congenitally blind individuals who lack visual imagery. Thus, visual imagery is not a prerequisite of auditory feedback to early visual cortex. Furthermore, the spatial pattern of sound decoding accuracy in early visual cortex was remarkably similar in blind and sighted individuals, with an increasing decoding accuracy gradient from foveal to peripheral regions. This suggests that the typical organization by eccentricity of early visual cortex develops for auditory feedback, even in the lifelong absence of vision. The same feedback to early visual cortex might support visual perception in the sighted [1] and drive the recruitment of this area for non-visual functions in blind individuals [2, 3].

Indexed as

SoundAcoustic StimulationBlindnessFeedback, SensoryHumansMagnetic Resonance ImagingVisual Cortexauditory feedbackblindbrain decodingearly visual cortexfMRIfoveaMVPAnatural soundsperipheryvisual imagery

Identifiers

PMID32559449
PMCPMC7416107
OpenAlexW3036382403

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.