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Poster B164 in Poster Session B - Thursday, August 8, 2024, 1:30 – 3:30 pm, Johnson Ice Rink
Shared connectome and organization in the human cortex irrespective of sensory experience
Guo Jiahui1 (), Francesca Setti2, Ma Feilong3, Davide Bottari2, Maria Ida Gobbini4, Pietro Pietrini2, Emiliano Ricciardi2, James V. Haxby3; 1The University of Texas at Dallas, 2IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, 3Dartmouth College, 4University of Bologna
To what extent is sensory experience a prerequisite for the development of the functional architecture of the high-level human visual cortex? In this study, congenitally blind and deaf participants were presented with audio-only and video-only versions of the live-action movie 101 Dalmatians. Three control groups of participants either watched and/or listened to the audiovisual, the audio-only, and the video-only versions of the movie. Using fMRI data from an independent group of participants, individualized category-selective topographies were successfully predicted in both congenitally blind and deaf participants. Category-selective topographies in the ventral visual pathway in congenitally blind participants were highly comparable to those in sighted participants. Functional connectomes were notably similar across the entire cortex, regardless of the modality of sensory input or the content of the stimuli. This study demonstrates that under real-world conditions, the connectome has a similar organization across varying sensory modalities and content, and shows that development of the functional organization of the human high-level cortex can occur independently of prior sensory experience.
Keywords: Naturalistic movie Hyperalignment Development Sensory deprivation