Unimodal sensory loss leads to structural and functional changes in both deprived and nondeprived brain circuits. This process is broadly known as cross-modal plasticity. The evidence available indicates that cross-modal changes underlie the enhanced performances of the spared sensory modalities in deprived subjects. Sensory experience is a fundamental driver of cross-modal plasticity, yet there is evidence from early–visually deprived models supporting an additional role for experience-independent factors. These experience-independent factors are expected to act early in development and constrain neuronal plasticity at later stages. Here we review the cross-modal adaptations elicited by congenital or induced visual deprivation prior to vision. In most of these studies, cross-modal adaptations have been addressed at the structural and functional levels. Here, we also appraise recent data regarding behavioral performance in early–visually deprived models. However, further research is needed to explore how circuit reorganization affects their function and what brings about enhanced behavioral performance.

中文翻译：

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在视觉之前被剥夺视觉输入的大脑的跨模式可塑性

单峰感觉丧失会导致剥夺和非剥夺大脑回路的结构和功能变化。这个过程被广泛称为跨模态塑性。现有证据表明，跨模式变化是贫困受试者未受影响的感觉模式表现增强的基础。感官体验是跨模式可塑性的基本驱动力，但早期视觉剥夺模型的证据支持独立于体验的因素的额外作用。这些与经验无关的因素预计会在发育早期发挥作用，并在后期限制神经元的可塑性。在这里，我们回顾了先天性或诱导性视觉剥夺在视力出现之前引起的跨模式适应。在大多数这些研究中，跨模式适应是在结构和功能层面上解决的。在这里，我们还评估了有关早期视觉剥夺模型中行为表现的最新数据。然而，还需要进一步的研究来探索电路重组如何影响其功能以及是什么带来增强的行为表现。