文章基本信息

标题：Age-dependent plasticity in the superior temporal sulcus in deaf humans: a functional MRI study
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作者：Norihiro Sadato ; Hiroki Yamada ; Tomohisa Okada 等
期刊名称：BMC Neuroscience
印刷版ISSN：1471-2202
电子版ISSN：1471-2202
出版年度：2004
卷号：5
期号：1
页码：1
DOI：10.1186/1471-2202-5-56
语种：English
出版社：BioMed Central
摘要：Background Sign-language comprehension activates the auditory cortex in deaf subjects. It is not known whether this functional plasticity in the temporal cortex is age dependent. We conducted functional magnetic-resonance imaging in six deaf signers who lost their hearing before the age of 2 years, five deaf signers who were >5 years of age at the time of hearing loss and six signers with normal hearing. The task was sentence comprehension in Japanese sign language. Results The sign-comprehension tasks activated the planum temporale of both early- and late-deaf subjects, but not that of hearing signers. In early-deaf subjects, the middle superior temporal sulcus was more prominently activated than in late-deaf subjects. Conclusions As the middle superior temporal sulcus is known to respond selectively to human voices, our findings suggest that this subregion of the auditory-association cortex, when deprived of its proper input, might make a functional shift from human voice processing to visual processing in an age-dependent manner.