Title
Cross-modal activation of the primary visual cortex by auditory stimulation in RCS rats: considerations in visual prosthesis.
Abstract
An important brain re-wiring, the so-called cross-modal plasticity, occurs during progression of retinal degenerative diseases to compensate for lack of visual input. The visual cortex does not go 'unused', instead it is devoted to processing other sensory modalities. In this study we recorded, in the visual cortex, visual- and auditory-evoked potentials in an anesthetized murine model of retinal degeneration. The latency to the first peak of the recorded local field potentials was used to assess the speed of the response. Visual responses occurred significantly faster in the control group. Conversely, auditory responses appeared significantly faster in animals with retinal degeneration. This suggests the compensatory neural rewiring is optimizing the performance of other sensory modalities, hearing in this case. This phenomenon may play an important role in visual neuro-rehabilitation. Whether or not it can promote or deter the interpretation of artificially encoded neural signals from a visual prosthesis remains to be studied.
Year
DOI
Venue
2022
10.1109/EMBC48229.2022.9871504
Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC)
DocType
Volume
ISSN
Conference
2022
2694-0604
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
0
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Daniel Caravaca-Rodriguez100.34
Gregg J Suaning201.01
Alejandro Barriga-Rivera300.34