Cortical plasticity and preserved function in early blindness

The neural Darwinism theory predicts that when one sensory modality is lacking, as in congenital blindness, the target structures are taken over by the afferent inputs from other senses that will promote and control their functional maturation (Edelman, 1993). This view receives support from both cross-modal plasticity experiments in animal models and functional imaging studies in man, which are presented here. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.