Brains of those with sight loss rewire themselves to help them track moving objects by sound, study shows

The brains of people with near total sight loss rewire themselves to allow them to track moving objects by sound, a study has found.

For the first time, scientists have shown how changes in the brain explain improvements to other senses – a phenomenon that has been longed talked about as a myth. 

The latest research from the University of Oxford and a number of US universities tracked people who were blind at birth or lost their sight as children discovered some visually impaired people are able to train themselves to use clicks as a type of echolocation to detect obstacles. 

They found their increased abilities may be possible because their hearing is much more finely tuned to variations in frequency.

The findings are published in two papers, with one study in the Journal of Neuroscience and the second study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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