A new study published by eNeuro reports that some blind individuals use mouth clicks and returning echoes to map their surroundings, a process known as echolocation. Researchers Haydee Garcia Lazaro and Santani Teng from the Smith–Kettlewell Eye Research Institute announced on Apr. 6 that they explored how the human brain creates representations of external environments through this method.
The research is significant because it helps explain how people without sight can navigate spaces by relying on sound instead of vision. This could have implications for developing new training methods or technologies to assist those who are blind.
In the study, four blind participants experienced in echolocation were able to identify object locations more accurately than 21 sighted individuals placed in a dark room. The researchers found that accuracy improved as these expert echolocators produced more self-generated mouth clicks. Neural activity associated with determining object location also increased across sequences of clicks, which led to better performance.
"Basically, we found that, in some experts, there appears to be a summation, or accumulation, of information in the brain that builds up across clicks about object location," Garcia-Lazaro said.
The findings suggest that repeated sounds help the brain form detailed representations of an environment when visual information is absent. Looking ahead, Garcia-Lazaro said she is excited about future research aimed at understanding what makes some blind people particularly skilled at echolocation and exploring ways to train both sighted and non-sighted individuals to develop this ability.
