fMRI reveals resiliency of the brain

Albert Einstein's assertion that his mathematical thinking was "part visual" might hold more weight, according to a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers uncovered further evidence of the brian's adapbility and resliency when they found that blind individuals may use parts of the brain reserved for vision to solve math problems.

They used functional MRI (fMRI) to track and compare what parts of the brain were most active in solving math problems in a group of congenitally blind subjects and a group of sighted subjects. Much of the brain activity was similar, but the blind subjects used "this whole extra chunk of brain devoted to the same task," wrote lead author Shipra Kanjlia, a graduate student in psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University.

Read more about fMRI and how it's giving insights into neural processing at The Atlantic.