For Ben, vision was gone forever. But by the time he was seven years old, he had devised a technique for decoding the world around him: he clicked with his mouth and listened for the returning echoes. This method enabled Ben to determine the locations of open doorways, people, parked cars, garbage cans, and so on. He was echolocating: bouncing his sound waves off objects in the environment and catching the reflections to build a mental model of his surroundings.
Echolocation may sound like an improbable feat for a human, but thousands of blind people have perfected this skill, just like Ben did. The answer lies in a gift bestowed on the brain by evolution: tremendous adaptability.
Whenever we learn something new, pick up a new skill, or modify our habits, the physical structure of our brain changes. Neurons, the cells responsible for rapidly processing information in the brain, are interconnected by the thousands—but like friendships in a community, the connections between them constantly change: strengthening, weakening, and finding new partners. Neuroscience used to think that different parts of the brain were predetermined to perform specific functions.
But more recent discoveries have upended the old paradigm. But that territory can be reassigned to a different task. There is nothing special about neurons in the visual cortex: they are simply neurons that happen to be involved in processing shapes or colors in people who have functioning eyes.
But in the sightless, these same neurons can rewire themselves to process other types of information. Mother Nature imbued our brains with flexibility to adapt to circumstances. As a result, Ben had more neurons available to deal with auditory information, and this increased processing power allowed Ben to interpret soundwaves in shocking detail. Recent decades have yielded several revelations about livewiring, but perhaps the biggest surprise is its rapidity.
Brain circuits reorganize not only in the newly blind, but also in the sighted who have temporary blindness. In one study, sighted participants intensively learned how to read Braille. Half the participants were blindfolded throughout the experience. Even more remarkably, the blindfolded participants showed activation in visual brain regions in response to touch and sound. When activity in the visual cortex was temporarily disrupted, the Braille-reading advantage of the blindfolded participants went away.
In other words, the blindfolded participants performed better on the touch-related task because their visual cortex had been recruited to help. After the blindfold was removed, the visual cortex returned to normal within a day, no longer responding to touch and sound. When blindfolded participants are continuously measured, touch-related activity shows up in the visual cortex in about an hour.
What does brain flexibility and rapid cortical takeover have to do with dreaming? Perhaps more than previously thought. Ben clearly benefited from the redistribution of his visual cortex to other senses because he had permanently lost his eyes, but what about the participants in the blindfold experiments?
If our loss of a sense is only temporary, then the rapid conquest of brain territory may not be so helpful. Of course, this refers to the vast majority of evolutionary time, not to our present electrified world. Our ancestors effectively were unwitting participants in the blindfold experiment, every night of their entire lives. We suggest that the brain preserves the territory of the visual cortex by keeping it active at night.
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How to remember your dreams Overview Dreams are hallucinations that occur during certain stages of sleep. The role of dreams. Why do we have nightmares? How to remember your dreams. Read this next. Medically reviewed by Timothy J. Legg, Ph. Medically reviewed by Raj Dasgupta, MD. Ease into Comfort with 10 of the Best Latex Pillows Latex pillows contain ultra-comfortable, supportive latex filling that help support your body all night long.
The 10 Best Pillows for Travel Snag your new favorite pillow for travel by checking out our roundup of the very best. Stephanie Thurrott is a writer who covers mental health, personal growth, wellness, family, food and personal finance, and dabbles in just about any other topic that grabs her attention.
When she's not writing, look for her out walking her dog or riding her bike in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Share this —. Follow today. More Brands. Why are people having more vivid dreams during the coronavirus pandemic? April 25, By Stephanie Thurrott. Could be. How sleep affects your brain health Feb.
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