ArticleeLife2023
Against cortical reorganisation.
Article in eLife, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 68 papers.
What it found
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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.
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.
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Who cites it
68 citing papers in PubMed.
- Microstructural properties in subacute aphasia: concurrent and prospective relationships underpinning recovery.Brain structure & function · 2024Trial
- Differential cross-modal functional plasticity in deaf individuals: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies.iScience · 2026Article
- Impaired peri-infarct long-term potentiation in anaesthetized rats suggests alternative mechanisms of post-stroke recovery.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
- Excitatory and inhibitory networks diverge following early blindness.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- Cutting a nerve of the hand alters the organization of digit maps in primary somatosensory cortex.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Structural reserve-dependent cortical rerouting of motor control after stroke.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2026Article
- Article
- How deep is your recovery? Rethinking true motor recovery versus compensation in neurorehabilitation.International journal of rehabilitation research. Internationale Zeitschrift fur Rehabilitationsforschung. Revue internationale de recherches de readaptation · 2026Review
- On the impact of tactile processing on motor cortex: how touch shapes motor behaviour.Brain structure & function · 2026Review
- Cortical functional connectivity in mouse models of early blindness: enucleation vs. anophthalmia.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- Right hemisphere language network plasticity in aphasia.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2026Article
- Long-range axon branching: contributions to brain network plasticity and repair.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Reopening Motor Learning Windows: Targeted Re-Engagement of Latent Pathways via Non-Invasive Neuromodulation.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- The Emergence of Topography and Hemispheric Lateralization in High-Level Vision.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2026Review
- Global remapping of the sensory homunculus emerges early in childhood development.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Neurology of social graces in patients with language deficits.Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry · 2026Article
- Recovery of Retinal Terminal Fields after Traumatic Brain Injury: Evidence of Collateral Sprouting and Sexual Dimorphism.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- A complex network perspective on brain disease.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Dense Phenotyping of Human Brain Network Organization Using Precision fMRI.Annual review of psychology · 2026Review
- Functional reorganization of the visual cortex in blindness: a connectivity perspective.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Review
8 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Neurological insults, such as congenital blindness, deafness, amputation, and stroke, often result in surprising and impressive behavioural changes. Cortical reorganisation, which refers to preserved brain tissue taking on a new functional role, is often invoked to account for these behavioural changes. Here, we revisit many of the classical animal and patient cortical remapping studies that spawned this notion of reorganisation. We highlight empirical, methodological, and conceptual problems that call this notion into doubt. We argue that appeal to the idea of reorganisation is attributable in part to the way that cortical maps are empirically derived. Specifically, cortical maps are often defined based on oversimplified assumptions of 'winner-takes-all', which in turn leads to an erroneous interpretation of what it means when these maps appear to change. Conceptually, remapping is interpreted as a circuit receiving novel input and processing it in a way unrelated to its original function. This implies that neurons are either pluripotent enough to change what they are tuned to or that a circuit can change what it computes. Instead of reorganisation, we argue that remapping is more likely to occur due to potentiation of pre-existing architecture that already has the requisite representational and computational capacity pre-injury. This architecture can be facilitated via Hebbian and homeostatic plasticity mechanisms. Crucially, our revised framework proposes that opportunities for functional change are constrained throughout the lifespan by the underlying structural 'blueprint'. At no period, including early in development, does the cortex offer structural opportunities for functional pluripotency. We conclude that reorganisation as a distinct form of cortical plasticity, ubiquitously evoked with words such as 'take-over'' and 'rewiring', does not exist.
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Registered trials
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.