Lora Likova - US grants

Learning in the Sighted and the Blind through Different Sensory Modalities:
Structure and Dynamics of Cortical Reorganization

This project focuses on the emerging area of the neuroscience of art learning. It addresses the important issue of how the brain learns complex skills, specifically the drawing process, through two different sensory modalities. Visual art, and drawing in particular, engages an orchestrated system of cognitive elements extending beyond mere visual perception. This brain system involves an array of cross-cognitive interactions for advanced learning in diverse sensory environments. However, there is a lack of systematic studies of the neural mechanisms of learning in visual art, or of the cross-cognitive transfer of such learning, and thus its neural substrate remains unknown. This exploratory neuroscience project will focus on understanding the fundamental dynamics of learning-based brain plasticity and the transfer of training effects between modalities and drawing genres. By using high-resolution functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), we will be able to systematically explore a rich set of interrelated questions about how learning takes place in the brains of both the sighted and of the blind as they are being trained to draw. This project will promote advanced knowledge in this new domain of research through its novel paradigm, through the state-of-the-art fMRI-compatible drawing system able to both capture the drawing motion in the scanner and provide quantitative on-line feedback, and through the innovative methods for non-invasive analysis of the neural dynamics in the human brain.
The proposed studies will provide transformative insights into the general principles of learning in both the blind and the sighted, and into the commonality and specificities of the neural process for learning through the visual or tactile modalities. The results will significantly enhance the understanding of the neural mechanisms of spatial cognition in blindness, specifically the mechanisms of brain plasticity that are of major importance for the future of both visual prostheses and educational strategies. The knowledge gained from this project can radically influence the development of new school and museum programs, as well as that of cognitive modeling and computational studies on spatial learning.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose a multidisciplinary approach to effective spatiomotor rehabilitation in blindness and visual impairment. For those who have lost vision, the eye-hand coordination normally available for the manipulation of objects for everyday activities is unavailable and has to be replaced by information from other senses. It becomes crucial to activate cross-modal brain plasticity mechanisms for functional compensation of the visual loss in order to develop robust non-visual mental representations of space and objects. Such non- visual 'maps' are needed to guide spatiomotor coordination, reasoning and decision-making. Our multidisciplinary approach to this problem lies uniquely at the intersection of the fields of blindness assessment, spatiomotor rehabilitation, and brain function, each a focus of one Specific Aim. The novel approach overcomes the shortcomings of traditional rehabilitation training, which can never cover all tasks that a person faces in life (and can be both tedious and expensive). To bridge this gap, we have developed an effective rehabilitation tool, the Cognitive-Kinesthetic (C-K) training protocol to bridge the gap to wide- spectrum blind rehabilitation by employing an integral task (drawing) that can affect 'at one stroke' a wide vocabulary of core abilities that are building blocks for numerous everyday tasks. Our pilot testing shows C-K training to be a powerful instigator of multiple skills, such as generation of precise memory representations (mental maps), enhanced spatial cognition and improved spatiomotor coordination. In Aim 1, we will comprehensively characterize the differential impact of life-history factors through a set of complementary forms of objective assessment of performance. In Aim 2, we will run the C-K rehabilitation training of precise (non-visual) spatiomotor coordination guided by tactile memory. After training, we will re-run all the assessments from Aim 1 to quantify the effectiveness of spatiomotor rehabilitation, its transfer to standardized measures for blind capabilities, and the effect of the independent life-history variables from Aim 1 on the effectiveness of the rehabilitation. Aim 3 will compare whole-brain functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) before and after the C-K training to determine how the visual 'eye-hand' coordination is replaced by nonvisual spatial-memory/hand coordination. Understanding the behavioral and neural adaptation mechanisms underlying the rehabilitation of vision loss will meet the NEI strategic goal of providing for a well-informed scientific approach to future rehabilitation. The comprehensive studies planned will generate a large-scale dataset of parallel measures of life-factors, spatiomotor performance and brain activity measures, which will be made publicly available to basic and clinical scientists.

This Science of Learning Collaborative Network brings together researchers and experts from the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, Columbia University, University of Bamberg (Germany), and Emory University to investigate how the visual art of drawing can enhance learning. Underlying learning principles and neural mechanisms will be considered, and how these can be harnessed for real-life learning enhancement. Though humans have been drawing for at least 30,000 years, little is understood about brain processes involved in this activity. The collaborative team represents the fields of neuroscience, art, education, neuro-rehabilitation, psychology, embodied cognition and learning theory. The goal is to understand the brain mechanisms involved in drawing and learning-though-drawing, and how to translate this insight for the enhancement of learning across a spectrum of vision function, from the fully-sighted to the large population suffering from visual deficits. A novel training procedure will be developed to speed up spatial, temporal and cognitive integration that is essential for many aspects of everyday functioning, including education, problem solving and the generation of ideas. With the explosion of new knowledge and larger social implications of the information age, this new multi-sensory approach to the enhancement of learning is expected to produce multiple societal benefits. The conceptualization of drawing as an active-learning intervention will provide a rich new framework for future research on learning, education and rehabilitation, along with a better understanding of the underlying brain mechanisms, which in turn will further inform the contributory fields.

The collaborative network has four overarching goals: First: to develop an effective working collaboration to study the power of drawing for learning. Second: to translate and expand surprising successes from previous work with blind individuals. Key research targets within this goal include (a) using advanced brain imaging techniques to identify brain mechanisms and learning principles underlying enhancement of learning-through-drawing, (b) generalizing that knowledge to design novel drawing-based methods to enhance learning, and testing those with STEM material in classrooms and labs, and (c) gaining insights in learning-related processes that may lie outside standard academic strategies. The third goal is to develop an innovative multi-sensory drawing training effective across levels of vision function, both to alleviate vision-based learning deficiencies in those with partial visual impairments, and to ameliorate their potential transition to severely limited or non-visual function as their condition worsens. The fourth is capitalizing on the insights and data accumulated, and the high-level expertise of the network across a wide range of relevant fields, to organize a forum to consider the results in the global context, to formulate overarching questions, and to map out the direction of future work to address them.

The award is from the Science of Learning-Collaborative Networks (SL-CN) Program, with funding from the SBE Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) and the SBE Office of Multidisciplinary Activities (SMA).

Advanced Spatiomotor Rehabilitation for Navigation in Blindness & Visual Impairment ABSTRACT We propose a radical new multidisciplinary approach to navigation training in blindness and visual impairment. Successful navigation requires the development of an accurate and flexible mental, or cognitive, map of the navigational space and of the route trajectory required to travel from the current to the target location. The Cognitive-Kinesthetic (C-K) Rehabilitation Training that we have developed in the preceding period utilizes a unique form of blind memory-guided drawing to develop cognitive mapping to a high level of proficiency. Particular reliance must be placed on such mental maps (supported only by tactile and auditory inputs), and on the ability to use them effectively for spatiomotor control, when vision with its built-in spatial functionality is lost. There is, however, a fundamental gap in the practice of Orientation and Mobility (O&M), which is the lack of a specific emphasis on enhancement of these cognitive roots of spatiomotor activity, despite their known importance for navigation in the visually impaired. We therefore propose a rigorous multidisciplinary approach to this issue, which lies at the intersection of the fields of spatiomotor rehabilitation, blindness assessment technologies, and brain function, each a focus of one Specific Aim. To train the spatial cognition abilities underlying successful navigation, the current proposal aims to translate the power of the C-K Rehabilitation Training, which we developed in the preceding grant period for the manual domain of operation, to the domain of navigation. The blind and visually impaired trainees will quickly learn how to generate precise and stable cognitive maps of haptically explored raised-line images or tactile maps, and how to use the formed cognitive maps to confidently guide both drawing ?hand navigation? on a map-scale, and whole-body blind navigation on the macro-scale. Once translated to navigation, our preliminary data show that this efficient and enjoyable training will rapidly and sustainably enhance spatial cognition functions both for improved navigation performance and for enhancement of more general spatial cognitive skills. Beyond its practical advantages, the training will also serve as an efficient tool to drive and study training-based neuroplasticity mechanisms through a comprehensive whole-brain multimodal brain imaging platform. These neuroplastic are difficult to study properly without a rapid and effective training protocol, which has not previously been available. Taken together, the research program will overcome the relative disconnect between expanding neuroscience knowledge and approaches to practical blindness rehabilitation. The knowledge gained will in turn inform and benefit further rehabilitative developments, both in navigation proficiency and in more general cognitive function in the blind population. !