IN PEOPLE who become blind, brain regions that specialise in vision get reassigned to process other senses. Now it appears that in rats other body parts are capable of adaptation as well.
and colleagues at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City assessed the function of the whisker pads of 6-month-old sighted and blind rats. They found that those from blind rats consumed energy more efficiently and generated different patterns of electric fields (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ).
This probably makes whiskers more sensitive, increasing the rats鈥� ability to discriminate by touch and enhancing exploration strategies, says Guti茅rrez-Ospina. 鈥淭his supports the notion that blindness is associated with whole-body reorganisation, not just brain reorganisation.鈥�
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The Human Brain 鈥� With one hundred billion nerve cells, the complexity is mind-boggling. Learn more in our cutting edge special report.
