# Mechanisms of multisensory rehabilitation in a primate model of hemianopia

> **NIH NIH R01** · WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · 2024 · $516,932

## Abstract

Project Summary
Damage to visual cortex by stroke or trauma often results in contralateral blindness, or hemianopia, a
condition that markedly compromises quality of life. The goal of this project is to develop a primate model of
multisensory rehabilitation from hemianopia. Although several therapeutic strategies have been tried over the
years, they have met with limited success, mostly restricted to the recovery of visuomotor orienting without
visual awareness. Recently, a novel, simple, noninvasive sensory training paradigm has been developed that
produces far more promising and rapid results. This paradigm involves repeatedly presenting spatiotemporally
congruent visual and auditory cues to the blinded hemifield, which engages plasticity within circuits that
process both visual and auditory signals. Results from hemianopic cats have shown that, after several weeks of
such multisensory exposure, animals recover the ability to detect and localize visual stimuli and perform
rudimentary visual pattern discrimination in the contralesional field. Similar findings were recently obtained in
two human patients, who were given a very similar multisensory rehabilitation paradigm, and were able to
verbally report on their awareness of visual stimuli in the previously blind hemifield. However, the extent of
visual capabilities that can be recovered is unknown. To overcome the limitations of using the cat model to
explore these limits and its neurobiological bases, we propose to establish a primate model of multisensory
rehabilitation with which we can detail the effectiveness, operation, and neural correlates of the paradigm. Our
immediate objective is to examine the most pressing questions relating to the psychophysical and
neurophysiological outcomes of the multisensory rehabilitation of hemianopia, including the quantification of
visual stimulus detection and visual feature discrimination capacities. To do so we will assess the behavioral
and perceptual capabilities of trained hemianopic monkeys on a battery of visual psychophysical tasks before
and after multisensory rehabilitation and assess changes in the neurophysiological properties of subcortical
and cortical areas (superior colliculus and area LIP) believed to underlie this recovery. These results will
provide a foundation for understanding the mechanisms underlying this novel rehabilitative approach so that
optimal translational strategies can be developed to ameliorate this condition in human patients.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10929526
- **Project number:** 5R01EY035409-02
- **Recipient organization:** WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** Benjamin A Rowland
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $516,932
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-09-30 → 2027-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10929526

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10929526, Mechanisms of multisensory rehabilitation in a primate model of hemianopia (5R01EY035409-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10929526. Licensed CC0.

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