@incollection{eprints3092, address = {San Diego}, author = {Pietro Pietrini and Maurice Ptito and Ron Kupers}, pages = {360 -- 374}, publisher = {Academic Press}, year = {2009}, booktitle = {The Neurology of Consciousness. Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropathology}, title = {Blindness and Consciousness: New Light from the Dark}, url = {http://eprints.imtlucca.it/3092/}, abstract = {How what we perceive is transformed into a coherent and integrated representation of the world around us is a question that has fascinated humans since the early days. What happens in our brain that enables us to make sense of what we see, hear, touch, smell or taste? How does the brain of someone who has never had any visual perception form an image of the external world? Do brains from sighted and blind individuals differ and how? In this chapter we discuss recent findings from research in animals as well from functional brain imaging studies in sighted and blind individuals that are shedding new light on how the brain works.} }