Both scientific studies and anecdotal evidence have suggested that people who experience vision loss often develop a more enhanced sense of hearing. So what happens inside the brain? New research investigates.

Share on Pinterest What happens in the auditory cortex of a person with early vision loss?

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 1.3 billion people worldwide have a form of vision impairment, which ranges from mild eyesight problems to legal blindness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) note that over 3.4 million people aged 40 and above in the United States are either legally blind or live with a form of visual impairment.

Anecdotal information has suggested that people who lose all or much of their eyesight have stronger senses of touch and hearing than people with 20/20 vision. This is because they have to rely so much more on their other senses to navigate the world.

Indeed, researchers have shown that people with severe visual impairments can perform better than fully-sighted people on hearing tasks and are better able to locate the source of a sound. Other research also reveals that people who lost their eyesight early in their life can hear sounds better than people without vision loss.

Previous studies have suggested that the brains of people with vision loss can adapt and “rewire” to enhance their other fully functional senses.

Now, research conducted by a team from the University of Washington in Seattle and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom has discovered what changes take place in the brains of people who lost their eyesight at an early age that makes them better able to process sound.

The new study — whose findings appear in The Journal of Neuroscience — looks at what happens in the auditory cortex brain region of people who lost their sight at an early age.