SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
People born without sight appear to solve math problems using visual areas of the brain.
A functional MRI study of 17 people blind since birth found that areas of visual cortex became active when the participants were asked to solve algebra problems, a team from Johns Hopkins reports in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"And as the equations get harder and harder, activity in these areas goes up in a blind person," says Marina Bedny, an author of the study and an assistant professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University.
In 19 sighted people doing the same problems, visual areas of the brain showed no increase in activity.
"That really suggests that yes, blind individuals appear to be doing math with their visual cortex," Bedny says.
Can they reduce math phobia while the subjects are in the MRI machines?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 21 2016, @11:50AM
The link at the bottom was to a recent story run on Soylent about researchers using MRIs to induce subjects to have certain feelings about faces; basically, to use the MRI to modify how you think. That was the relevance of the link, to induce people in the MRI being monitored for math usage to also alter how they feel about math.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @12:47PM
Maybe you didn't read my comment. I didn't complain about the relevancy of the linked page, I complained about it being misleading.
A proper attribution line before the quoted block, containing the link to the source, would have cleared that up, as then there would have been no doubt that the link following the block wasn't the link to the source.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Wednesday September 21 2016, @05:48PM
I saw that, but the PNAS link is just an abstract an no actual article. I want to see whether they used a proper control, as fMRI has a very dodgy scientific basis.
The interesting question *I* would like to see answered is "can a normally sighted person improved cognitive activities by suppressing vision?" (e.g. darkened room).
I've really improved my sleep by blacking out the room, although it was prompted by staying an airport hotel and sleeping off jetlag, rather than reading an article!