In case of early acquired deafness, auditory deprived temporal regions massively enhance their response to stimuli from remaining senses. This so called cross-modal plasticity also alters functional connectivity between reorganized temporal regions and those from preserved senses. The extent and distribution of white matter structural alterations supporting these functional effects are still poorly understood. In this diffusion MRI study, we investigate white matter reorganization of early deaf relative to hearing controls. Further, since early deaf typically become fluent at sign language, which may itself also induce brain structural reorganization unrelated to deafness, we also include a group of hearing signers.
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