[il-talk] Fw: Blindness related Princeton/Georgetown research studies

[Deborah Kent Stein]

Alana D'Alfonso, B.A.
Intramural Research Training Award Fellow
Theodore Lab, Clinical Epilepsy Section
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH
<dalfonsoat at mail.nih.htm>dalfonsoat at mail.nih.gov
301.451.8486

Participate in paid research studies on blindness!

About the study: The brains of blind individuals are different from those 
of the sighted in that part of the brain called the occipital cortex which
normally processes visual information in the sighted is involved in 
processing of information gathered from other senses such as touch and 
hearing.  This phenomenon, called crossmodal plasticity, is understood as 
changes resulting from long-term visual deprivation in the blind and has 
been shown in performance of non-visual tasks such as Braille reading, 
verbal tasks, shape discrimination, and sound localization.  We hope to 
further our understanding of crossmodal plasticity by examining other 
behavioral domains that have not yet been investigated.  Findings of our 
studies will not only have potential implications for blindness 
rehabilitation but also contribute significantly to our understanding of 
how the human brain works.

We are currently looking for blind volunteers who would be interested in 
participating in one or both of our two studies.  Our first study focuses 
on language processing in the blind. Participants will be asked to listen 
to a story while in a magnetic resonance imaging or MRI machine. Findings 
will be used to help determine if the occipital cortex in the blind 
involved in processing linguistic information.

For the second study, we are examining melody processing in the blind, 
more specifically, how long-term visual deprivation affects the way blind 
people process sound in general and pitch in particular.  This will also 
be an fMRI study where the task will be to listen to sequences of tones 
and make simple perceptual judgments on them in the scanner.  Findings of 
this study will help understand superior pitch abilities that the blind 
possess compared to the sighted, and further knowledge on musical 
processing in the blind.


Each of these studies will last approximately 2.5 hours, and all the 
participants will be reimbursed for travel expenses and participation in 
the studies.  MRI has been shown to be a safe imaging technique as no 
known side effects have been reported.

Who we are looking for: For the study on the language processing, we are 
looking for those who have been blind from birth and are ages 18-65 with 
no residual vision or light sensitivity. For the study on pitch 
processing, blind individuals who became blind at any age are welcome to 
participate.

Location: The language study will take place at both Georgetown University
located in Washington D.C. as well as Princeton University located in 
Princeton, NJ. Princeton is located between New York and Philadelphia and 
is accessible via train. Participants may choose which location is more 
convenient for them.  The music study will take place only at Georgetown 
University in Washington D.C.


Contact Us: If you are interested, please contact Alana D'Alfonso at 
<mailto:dalfonso at alumni.princeton.edu>dalfonso at alumni.princeton.edu or 
<tel:610-500-1150>610-500-1150.