X-Message-Number: 12512
Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 20:23:47 -0400
From: Jan Coetzee <>
Subject: Feel With The Mind's Eye

Scientists Show How We Feel With The Mind's Eye

LONDON (Reuters) - Researchers in the United States said Wednesday they
have shown that the
part of the brain that processes sight is also involved in the sense of
touch.

The research, reported in the science journal Nature, challenges the
belief that different regions
of the brain deal with the sensations of the various senses which could
have important
implications for blind and deaf people.

``The findings are relevant to understanding not only how the brain
normally processes sensory
information, but also how such processing is altered in conditions such
as blindness, deafness or
numbness and ultimately, to improving methods of communication for
individuals afflicted with
these disorders,'' said Dr Krishnankutty Sathian.

The professor of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine in
Atlanta, Georgia, and her
colleagues showed that the visual cortex of the brain which processes
vision is also necessary
for the sense of touch.

``Recent findings that visual cortex is active during Braille reading in
the blind are perhaps less
surprising if viewed in this context,'' Sathian said in a statement.

The scientists studied 14 sighted volunteers who performed a series of
tests while the functions
of various parts of the brain region associated with the sense of sight
and then with the sense of
touch were blocked using a technique called transcranial magnetic
stimulation.

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