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Research Shows How Deaf Cats' Brains Re-Purpose Auditory Centers
An anonymous reader writes "Deaf or blind people often report enhanced abilities in their remaining senses, but up until now, no one has explained how and why that could be. Researchers at the University of Western Ontario, led by Stephen Lomber of The Centre for Brain and Mind, have discovered there is a causal link between enhanced visual abilities and reorganization of the part of the brain that usually handles auditory input in congenitally deaf cats. The findings, published online in Nature Neuroscience, provide insight into the plasticity that may occur in the brains of deaf people."
Because getting a hearing aid to fit in a cat's ear would be rather difficult.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
The rare intersection of cats, disabilities, abilities, and jokes:
What has 9 arms, and ROCKS?
THL phish sticks
Saying that deaf people have plastic brains is just plain rude! ;)
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
He just doesn't give a flying fuck about me unless he wants out, in, or food.
It only makes sense to program the brain to automatically redistribute processing power to those sensors that are still transmitting inputs.
The real question is how the same brain areas are repurposed in hip cats.
but up until now, no one has explained how and why that could be.
ok, I agree that it's interesting research, but have they really never heard the explanation that they use them more? Neuroplasticity is awesome, but there certainly have been explanations for it before now.....
Qxe4
kthxbi
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
The real question is - why is this unexpected? It's what I would have expected, and I'm not even deaf!
I read the summary, it's kind of interesting. The graphs in the actual article look pretty definitive. But a sentence stood out to me:
Does anyone know what that is? I've never heard this before. My natural assumption would be that most animals could be born deaf, and that it's just selected out of the population by natural selection. But if that were the case, we'd expect other animals (especially those without natural selection pressures, such as domesticated Dogs) to be born deaf.
But just cats and humans? What about other primates?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
My cat has re-purposed both of his neurons to become better at minimizing the gravitational potential energy of every small object in my dwelling.
(He certainly wasn't using them to listen to me...)
a small ischemic stroke in the hippocampus took out my boyfriend's short-term memory, and despite plenty of healthy brain tissue in the neighborhood, his ability to form new memories was permanently shot.
Have you seen the film Memento? If so, does it accurately represent the condition?
found this in two seconds
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+1630&aid=857
It's equally as funny as it is entertaining to see a dog bark and growl at a particular race. I'm sure most people have seen a racist dog or two.
"Deaf or blind people often report enhanced abilities in their remaining senses, but up until now, no one has explained how and why that could be."
Up until now? Pfft.
There's been a lot of experiments done on the brain repurposing unused areas of the brain. For example, a school of the blind in France requires all of their teachers to spend some period of time living in perfect darkness inside a house so that they can better appreciate what their students are going through. Teachers that go through the program report being able to 'see sound', which is basically the result of their visual cortex being repurposed to process audio input, but which the brain is still taking as input into whatever it is that creates our visual senses in our sensorium.
Likewise, when they leave the darkness, they have a really hard time seeing for a few days, as the brain slowly adjusts back to using the visual cortex for what it was intended for.
I'd really recommend Dioge's book, The Brain that Changes Itself. It's a good summary of brain plasticity.
am glad that the researchers I work with as a lab tech have figured this out. I'm tired of blowing off M-80's next to kittens ears.
Next experiment is something about paralyzed dogs. "Here is some money, get an axe at Home Depot" they said. Hmmm, I wonder what I will have to do there.
Reminds me of this talk, about the brain and certain damage it can receive.
Vilayanur Ramachandran on your mind
-Quartinae
They didn't need to go to the trouble to "discover" that: they could have asked me. I lost my hearing at age 17 and, in response, my brain increased its abilities 10-fold, easily, so that I'm now the smartest man on the planet. Why, yes, I am wearing my underwear outside of my pants. Why do you ask...?
No, seriously, I did lose my hearing. I found that I compensated for it by paying way more attention to non-verbal cues. For example, I can tell before an interviewer even knows it, himself, that I'm not gonna get the job. I can also see it, clearly, when someone's trying to BS me. You also learn introspection, since you don't have the auditory distractions.
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
I've always relied very heavily on audio cues my whole life, and have exceptionally developed hearing (perfect pitch, good direction finding, instrument/voice separation, etc). I'm pretty seriously red/green colorblind (failed all the bubble wheels at the optometrist), and I've often wondered if this is related.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
I for one welcome our deaf cat overlords.
I said "I welcome you"
I WELCOME YOU DEAF CATS!
while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
So...how did the scientist get so many deaf cat samples?
Perhaps these cats will actually be good listeners... sit fluffy sit!... Sit... Siiiiiiiit... SIT FLUFFY... nope... still the same.
What you say?