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When Blind People Do Algebra, the Brain's Visual Areas Light Up (npr.org)
People born without sight appear to solve math problems using visual areas of the brain. NPR has a fascinating report on this: A functional MRI study of 17 people blind since birth found that areas of visual cortex became active when the participants were asked to solve algebra problems, a team from Johns Hopkins reports in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "And as the equations get harder and harder, activity in these areas goes up in a blind person," says Marina Bedny, an author of the study and an assistant professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University. In 19 sighted people doing the same problems, visual areas of the brain showed no increase in activity. "That really suggests that yes, blind individuals appear to be doing math with their visual cortex," Bedny says. The findings, published online Friday, challenge the idea that brain tissue intended for one function is limited to tasks that are closely related.
> Do they support CUDA or OpenCL?
Is a question with serious ethical implications.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
So they're using their GPU to accelerate math processing?
Perhaps, or perhaps not. Given the usual submission to publication lead times on journals I suspect they have some debugging to do.
I think this is actually a good analogy.
Graphics processors can be used to do math, it makes sense that the brain would repurpose nonfunctional areas for other things.
Think about it, the brain has all these neurons capable of doing all these calculations to recognize objects rotated at various angles... It would make sense to repurpose them for something else if they aren't being used, for example because your optic nerve is fried and no visualnsensory input is coming to your brain.
It's clear that the brain has this capability.