Cyclic sensory loss and restoration: from neural mechanisms to perceptual functions

How our perception works is well explored, and yet we do not understand how the human brain accomplishes the high degree of plasticity demonstrated by our perceptual systems. Here, we will determine the central mechanisms that regulate human perceptual plasticity.

This basic question of sensory psychology has remained largely unanswered due to methodological hindrances, among which the unfeasibility of a within-person design stands out, when exploring plastic changes due to sensory loss or gain.

Utilizing a unique patient population that undergoes cyclic periods of olfactory dysfunction due to nasal blockage, we will use a multimodal neuroimaging approach and determine what neural changes are linked to behavioral change in sensory functions.

Specifically, we will combine a new electro-cortical measuring method, which allows us to assess functional connectivity with millisecond resolution, with that of classic magnetic resonance methods to assess mechanisms of perceptual plasticity at multiple levels of processing.

The proposed studies will answer the basic questions of what central mechanisms govern perceptual plasticity as well as whether sensory gain and sensory loss are merely opposite sides of the same mechanistic coin.