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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: 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.