The loss of one sense early in life can lead to an enhancement of the remaining senses. The behavioral enhancements are often accompanied by cortical reorganization, where sensory-deprived auditory regions are recruited for processing visual and tactile stimuli. To date, studies of compensatory plasticity in early deaf individuals have tended to focus on unisensory (either tactile or visual) spatial processing, and the recruitment of deprived auditory areas. Combining behavioral and neuroimaging measurements, the goals of this proposed project are to examine the effects of auditory deprivation on multisensory temporal processing, and to characterize the neural mechanisms underlying these effects. Specifically, we will determine whether early deafness impairs both the precision and the malleability of multisensory temporal integration and whether these impairments are spatially modulated. Furthermore, we will characterize neural correlates and neural dynamics of multisensory temporal processing in deaf individuals focusing on the right superior temporal sulcus (rSTS), a multisensory region that is the likely candidate mediating behavioral alterations in multisensory temporal functions following auditory deprivation. Taken together, this work will provide insights into the brain mechanisms underlying multisensory temporal perception in deaf individuals.
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