More accurate sound localization induced by short-term light deprivation

Crossmodal reorganization processes in the brain are mainly associated with early blindness, on the assumption that recruitment of genuine visual areas, such as primary visual cortex, for non-visual functions results in superior auditory and tactile performance of blind, compared to sighted, humans. This study shows that in sighted subjects the accuracy of sound localization, measured by a task of head pointing to acoustic targets, is reversibly increased after short-term light deprivation of 90 min. However, only the systematic deviations from target positions (constant error) were reduced after light deprivation, while the general precision of head pointing remained unchanged. Return to pre-deprivation values was observed after 180 min of re-exposure to light. The post-deprivation change was similar, though less in magnitude, to the effect of blindness that was demonstrated previously. Generally, these findings indicate that auditory–visual crossmodal plasticity can be quite rapidly initiated by deprivation of the visual cortex from visual input. It seems possible that visual deprivation has an influence on neuronal circuits, that are involved in processing of auditory information in visual brain areas of normal sighted humans. Since exclusively the constant error in sound localization, not general performance, was changed, the present effect of visual deprivation may, however, not be attributable to reorganization processes in the sense of a compensation for the absence of vision. It is more likely that the observed change in accuracy was specifically induced by the absence of visual calibration of the neural representation of auditory space during light deprivation.