Neurophysiological Mechanisms Underlying Plastic Changes and Rehabilitation following Sensory Loss in Blindness and Deafness

We live in a society that is based on vision. Visual information is used for orienting in our environment, identifying objects in our surroundings, alerting us to important events that require our attention, engaging in social interactions, and many more necessary functions so we can efficiently function in everyday life. Similarly, audition is used for communication and for guiding our attention to potentially important or even dangerous events (e.g., the sound of a nearing car). Thus, the loss of any of these modalities decreases the quality of life and represents a severe challenge to efficient functioning for tens of millions of individuals worldwide (World health Organization, Fact Sheet no. 282, May 2009). Furthermore, it has a significant economic impact on society. It is therefore not surprising that numerous approaches and potential solutions designed to overcome these difficulties have been put forward to help the sensory-impaired. Although such compensation devices, for example, highly sensitive hearing aids, volume enhancing devices for different technologies, and medical–technological solutions such as cochlear implants, are much more successful for the auditorily impaired, compensation and technological aids for the visually impaired, contents