Your Brain On Braille
Most people would agree that—at a minimum—functional literacy is important. The knowledge of how to spell words and use proper punctuation makes one a competent adult. There are other benefits to reading braille as well.
Blindness reorganizes the human brain, allowing parts that wouldn’t be used to get some exercise. This extra brain use and reorganization could lead to greater memory capabilities and potentially even to mental health benefits. Dr. Harold Burton of Washington University has been doing research for the last several years on the effects of blindness on the human brain. Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) scans on study participants, he has determined that the visual cortex reorganizes itself to accommodate other functions. Dr. Burton’s name is attached to a lot of the studies that I will be discussing here, so feel free to check out our resources page for an annotated bibliography with all of that information on it.
So, what does being blind do to the brain? Without the eyes being active, the optic nerves begin to atrophy, or weaken, from disuse. It is the same as having to get physical therapy after an extended hospital stay because your legs don’t work quite right. Now it is just the nerves that atrophy not the muscles or the eyes themselves fortunately. The portion of the brain that processes the visual information (the neuroscientists call it the visual cortex) does not atrophy either. Even though it is no longer receiving any stimulus from the optic nerves, it doesn’t quit working, it simply gets a new to-do list. One of the new tasks on this list is the processing of auditory linguistics or word-related functions that are heard. Many of Dr. Burton’s studies involve having the participants sit with their eyes closed and listen to a series of words and then make a connection quickly after the series is finished. There are two forms to the tests; one is phonological, or rhyme-oriented, and the other semantic, or meaning- based. The phonological test is a series of words with a rhyme scheme to them that the participant has to provide a similar sounding word for. In the semantic portion, the participants hear a series of sixteen nouns, and they give a verb that connects all of the nouns. The semantic test showed the most outstanding results in the tests.
What is most interesting about the studies is that the blind participants showed a lot of activity in the portion of the brain that is usually reserved for processing the visual information for what the doctors call “normal-sighted” and we will refer to as simply “sighted.” After the initial series of tests when this was observed, the doctors altered the lists to use words that were abstract and had no visual connotation to them. What this means is that if a word like “house” was used, the participant might visualize their house. This could throw off the results for the sighted and late-blind participants of the study because they would be using the visual cortex to recall the image of their house. Even with eyes closed and the vision not being used, if you picture something in your head, it activates that part of the brain. So to avoid this, they chose words that did not have an image connected to them. Given the number of nouns that we use that are concrete, the test also called for the participant to create a verb action not necessarily being an image-oriented kind of thing.
According to Dr. Burton, not all of the reorganization that takes place is devoted to lexical or word-based processing. The visual cortex also activates based on tactile processes. This means that touch-based activities that do not correspond to word usage at all also use a portion of the now jobless visual cortex. What does all this really mean? What does it matter if your brain actually physically rewires itself to accommodate for blindness and uses the otherwise unused parts for other things?
Well, there isn’t really any concrete evidence yet on what all this extra activity does. Understand that all of this research is still in its very early stages, and no one is totally sure to what extent these changes will impact our individual lives. Dr. Amir Amedi and his team of neuroscientists propose that the reorganization of the visual cortex increases storage and retrieval of words heard by the blind. This would seem to enhance the memory capabilities of the blind, making for some amazing memory for detail and events. Dr. Amedi even references the old cultural belief that blind individuals make the best historians, since they never forget anything. Dr. Amedi actually opens his paper with the following quote: “The traditions cited by Rabbi Sheshet are not subject to doubt as he is a blind man.”-Talmud Yerushalmi, tractate Shabat 6b.
Other studies have been performed across the world that conclude mental activity, especially cognitive action, has a similar effect on the brain as getting proper exercise does on the rest of your body. Jogging, weight lifting, cardiovascular exercise, and yoga are all recommended for keeping your body healthy and preventing weight gain and a multitude of heart conditions. The same goes for your brain. While your brain obviously can’t go for a jog or bench press your little brother, it can receive exercise from a lot of different places. One of the most popular, and often referenced in these studies, is the recent surge of brain training video games. If those games activate the brain, visually and cognitively, reading braille should have similar results for the blind.
So now we’re talking long term physical and mental health as well as the skills to further yourself in the job market. The cognitive functions of word association and tactile activity stimulate many parts of the visual cortex of the brain, and cognitive brain activity is good for warding off such nasty things as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Learning and using braille won’t just make you a better writer or more marketable for jobs but may very well increase your longevity and overall mental health for years to come.
