Variability of Brain Reorganization in Blindness

失明时大脑重组的变异性

• 批准号: 10562129
• 负责人: Ella Ruth Striem-Amit
• 金额: $ 58.46万
• 依托单位: GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-04-01 至 2028-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10562129
• 关键词: Adult; Affect; Age; Animals; Behavioral; Biological Markers; Blindness; Brain; Clinical; Cognitive; Darkness; Data; Development; Disease; Equilibrium; Exposure to; Eye diseases; Fingerprint; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Future; Goals; Hearing; Human; Individual; Individual Differences; Intervention; Laboratory Animal Models; Language; Life; Life Experience; Link; Logic; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Maps; Measures; Medical; Memory; Nature; Neuroanatomy; Neuronal Plasticity; Neurons; Outcome; Participant; Pattern; Persons; Population; Procedures; Process; Rehabilitation therapy; Research; Rest; Risk; Role; Sampling; Self-Help Devices; Sensory; Sensory Aids; Signal Transduction; Techniques; Testing; Time; Tissues; Touch sensation; Treatment Efficacy; Vision; Visual; Visual Cortex; Visual impairment; Visually Impaired Persons; blind; cognitive ability; cognitive task; cohort; critical period; dark rearing; deafness; deprivation; early onset; environmental enrichment for laboratory animals; experience; functional gain; gamma-Aminobutyric Acid; improved; individualized medicine; insight; inter-individual variation; limb loss; motor deficit; neural; neurobehavioral; neurochemistry; neuroimaging; neuroregulation; personalized medicine; prevent; recruit; resilience; response; sensory cortex; sensory substitution; sight restoration; success; theories; tool; vision rehabilitation; visual deprivation; visual plasticity

PROJECT SUMMARY Severe vision loss affects ~40 million people worldwide1 and more as the population ages3. The success of sight restoration and use of sensory aids for blind individuals depends on poorly-understood factors: some people do not gain functional sight despite invasive procedures37-40. Mitigating this problem requires mapping the impacts of reduced vision on the brain, which may preclude rehabilitation efforts. Following early-onset blindness, the visual cortex (VC) undergoes plastic reorganization4-6,14,17 that may crucially affect its capacity to process restored vision and employ compensatory strategies24. However, little effort has been made to understand the variability of brain reorganization across blind individuals and its implications for sight restoration and compensatory abilities. Contributing to improved individually-tailored visual rehabilitation, we propose to study multi-scale variability in the brains of blind individuals using temporal, neurochemical, and spatial analyses of neuroimaging and behavioral data. First, we will study if the blind VC retains a higher-than-typical plasticity potential with neurochemical and temporal dynamics fMRI measures. Since visual experience in early development facilitates VC stabilization42,79, and short-term dark exposure elicits plasticity41,80,81, we predict sustained plasticity in blind individuals. This would clarify mechanisms of brain maturation and the potential to harness and revive adult plasticity for rehabilitation. Second, we will investigate how visual experience affects individual differences in brain development, testing if blindness results in more variable brain organization. Assessing brain-wide connections of the blind VC and its atypical responses to non-visual tasks, we will test if VC plasticity affords more variable outcomes which can explain contradictory group-level findings about VC role in blindness. We will examine the pattern of VC compensatory engagement in blindness, testing whether plasticity in blindness can change typical VC sensory functions for higher- level cognitive roles or if it is restricted by neuroanatomical limitations, clarifying the capacity for plasticity in the human brain. Finally, we will determine if VC has a single consistent role in all blind individuals or if distinct individual patterns emerge, patterns that could be employed for individualized rehabilitation. We will examine whether unique and longitudinally-stable whole-brain patterns of plasticity relate to compensatory behavioral abilities in blind individuals for touch82-84, hearing63,85-87, memory88-92 and language93,94 and to VC non-visual recruitment. We will further use such individual plasticity patterns to predict which blind individuals may benefit from a sensory aid (sensory substitution), revealing if different subtypes of plasticity can indicate behavioral capacities across individuals and be employed as rehabilitation biomarkers. Overall, this project will improve our understanding of brain plasticity principles in blindness, and open a path to defining biomarkers for personalized treatments for visual impairment.

项目摘要 随着人口年龄的增长，严重的视力损失影响了全球约4000万人。3。视力的成功 盲目个人的恢复和使用感官辅助因素取决于不牢固的因素：有些人不知道 尽管侵入性手术37-40，也获得了功能视力。缓解此问题需要映射减少的影响 大脑的愿景，这可能会阻止康复工作。在早期发病之后，视觉皮层（VC） 经历塑料重组4-6,14,17，可能会影响其处理恢复视力和采用的能力 补偿策略24。但是，几乎没有努力了解大脑重组的变异性 跨盲人及其对视觉恢复和补偿能力的影响。有助于改善 我们建议对盲人的大脑中的多尺度变异性进行单独限制的视觉康复 使用神经影像和行为数据的时间，神经化学和空间分析。 首先，我们将研究盲人VC是否保留具有高于神经化学和时间的高度典型可塑性的潜力 动力学fMRI措施。由于早期开发的视觉经验促进了VC稳定42,79和短期 黑暗暴露引起了塑性41,80,81，我们预测盲人的持续可塑性。这将澄清机制 大脑成熟以及利用和恢复成人可塑性以进行康复的潜力。 其次，我们将研究视觉体验如何影响大脑发育中的个体差异，测试是否 失明会导致更可变的大脑组织。评估盲人VC及其非典型连接 对非视觉任务的响应，我们将测试VC可塑性是否提供了更多可变结果 关于VC在失明中作用的矛盾群体级别的发现。我们将检查VC补偿性的模式 参与失明，测试失明中的可塑性是否可以改变典型的VC感觉功能 水平认知角色或受神经解剖学局限性的限制，阐明了人类可塑性的能力 脑。 最后，我们将确定VC在所有盲人中是否具有一致的角色，还是不同的个体模式 出现，可以用于个性化康复的模式。我们将研究是否唯一 纵向稳定的可塑性全长模式与盲人的补偿行为能力有关 触摸82-84，听力为63,85-87，内存88-92和语言93,94以及VC非视觉招聘。我们将进一步使用这种 个人可塑性模式可以预测哪些盲人可能会受益于感官辅助（感觉替代）， 揭示是否不同的可塑性亚型可以表明个人的行为能力，并被用作 康复生物标志物。 总体而言，该项目将提高我们对失明中大脑可塑性原则的理解，并为 定义用于视觉障碍的个性化治疗方法的生物标志物。