Workshop: Blindness, Brain Plasticity & Spatial Function

描述（由申请人提供）：本次研讨会的目的是整合脑科学和认知科学中有关严重视力受损者空间功能的最新研究结果，并考虑其对教育和康复工程的影响。 脑科学的主要发现集中在动物模型和人类可塑性和发育的成像研究上，这些研究表明，与蒙眼的人相比，早发性失明的人在触觉和听觉处理中更大程度地招募了枕叶皮层。 认知科学的发现集中在感觉替代，个体差异和空间功能的发展差异。 在这些研究领域几乎没有进行过研究，也没有探索这些发现如何应用于严重视力障碍患者的学习，教育和康复。 该提案是为了支持在范德比尔特大学举行的为期三天的科学研讨会。 参与者将是来自脑科学，认知科学，康复工程和康复的22名既定研究人员和14名初级研究人员，以展示最新发现，分析跨不同学科的问题，提出应用程序， 康复实践，并确定实施应用程序所需的研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This workshop's aim is to integrate recent findings about the spatial functioning of persons with severely impaired vision from the brain sciences and cognitive sciences, and to consider the implications for education and rehabilitative engineering. Central findings from brain sciences are focused on animal models and human imaging studies of plasticity and development that show the occipital cortex is recruited in tactile and auditory processing to a greater degree for people with early-onset blindness than for blindfolded-sighted people. Findings from cognitive sciences are focused on sensory substitution, individual differences, and developmental differences in spatial functioning. There has been little effort cutting across these areas of research, nor to explore how the findings may apply to learning, education, and rehabilitation of people with severe visual impairment. The proposal is to support a three day scientific workshop at Vanderbilt University. The participants would be 22 established investigators and 14 junior investigators from the brain sciences, cognitive sciences, rehabilitative engineering, and rehabilitation to present recent findings, analyze issues that cut across the different disciplines, propose applications to rehabilitation practice, and identify research needed to implement the applications.