Coming up at #ARVO2026 on May 6: Comparing tactile and auditory sensory substitution on visual cortex recruitment in the early and late blind https://lnkd.in/eDtyzZJU by Patrick Paszkowski, Giles Hamilton-Fletcher, Matthew Murphy, Nau Amy and Kevin C. Chan, PhD, FARVO. Purpose: "Sensory substitution devices (SSDs) can convert visual images into tactile patterns using a tongue display unit (TDU), or sound patterns using The vOICe, to help blind individuals interact with the visual environment. How different SSDs activate the visual cortex (VC) in blind users remains unclear. Here we compare TDU and vOICe responses within and between early blind (EB) and late blind (LB) groups, by assessing brain activity, cross-SSD correlations, and effects of prior visual experience." Layman Abstract: "When using either vision-to-tactile or vision-to-sound sensory substitution devices for vision restoration, we found that auditory approaches elicited stronger visual cortex activity than tactile approaches across both early and late blind individuals. In terms of cortical locations, vision-to-tactile sensory substitution exhibited stronger visual cortex activity in the right hemisphere for early blind users relative to late blind users, mirroring our prior findings with vision-to-sound sensory substitution. Within the late blind only, we found a strong positive correlation in terms of how much visual cortex activity was elicited for tactile and auditory approaches. These findings showcase the flexibility of the blind brain to recruit the visual cortex for interpreting sensory substitution signals across both tactile and auditory modalities, and how this brain activity is influenced by prior visual experience." #neuroscience #noninvasive #NeuroTech #BCI #blindness
Coming up at #ARVO2026 on May 6: Comparing tactile and auditory sensory substitution on visual cortex recruitment in the early and late blind https://lnkd.in/eDtyzZJU by Patrick Paszkowski, Giles Hamilton-Fletcher, Matthew Murphy, Nau Amy and Kevin C. Chan, PhD, FARVO. Purpose: "Sensory substitution devices (SSDs) can convert visual images into tactile patterns using a tongue display unit (TDU), or sound patterns using The vOICe, to help blind individuals interact with the visual environment. How different SSDs activate the visual cortex (VC) in blind users remains unclear. Here we compare TDU and vOICe responses within and between early blind (EB) and late blind (LB) groups, by assessing brain activity, cross-SSD correlations, and effects of prior visual experience." Layman Abstract: "When using either vision-to-tactile or vision-to-sound sensory substitution devices for vision restoration, we found that auditory approaches elicited stronger visual cortex activity than tactile approaches across both early and late blind individuals. In terms of cortical locations, vision-to-tactile sensory substitution exhibited stronger visual cortex activity in the right hemisphere for early blind users relative to late blind users, mirroring our prior findings with vision-to-sound sensory substitution. Within the late blind only, we found a strong positive correlation in terms of how much visual cortex activity was elicited for tactile and auditory approaches. These findings showcase the flexibility of the blind brain to recruit the visual cortex for interpreting sensory substitution signals across both tactile and auditory modalities, and how this brain activity is influenced by prior visual experience." #neuroscience #noninvasive #NeuroTech #BCI #blindness
The vOICe vision BCI ๐ง ๐ช๐บ
The vOICe vision BCI ๐ง ๐ช๐บ