How Senses Work Together: Cross-Modal Interactions between Primary Sensory Cortices

Figure 3

Acute conductive hearing loss (CHL) leads to an immediate improvement of visual acuity and contrast sensitivity as revealed by intrinsic signal imaging in V1. (a) Visual stimuli were sine wave gratings with increasing spatial frequency (upper row) and decreasing contrasts, respectively, (lower row). After CHL, also weak visual stimuli (higher spatial frequency, low contrast) evoked high responses in V1 compared to before CHL conditions. (b) Hence, the determined values of visual acuity and contrast sensitivity were significantly enhanced by 15% and 60%, respectively, after CHL.

(a)

(b)