Monica Gori

Parents' touch regulates infants' physiology, and vision may be essential for identifying social partners, but whether the absence of visual feedback affects this physiological effect has never been tested. We examined whether visual deprivation alters infants' autonomic responses to affective touch from a parent versus a stranger. Eighteen infants aged 8–13 months (9 with peripheral visual impairment, 9 sighted) received slow stroking (3 cm/s) on the right shin while the parent or an unfamiliar adult sat in front of them as the apparent source of touch. Typically developing infants showed a larger heart-rate deceleration during parent than stranger touch. Infants with visual impairment did not differentiate between adults and showed higher heart-rate responses than typically developing infants in the parent condition (Group × Parent Identity interaction). Visual experience may help link affective touch to its social source. The small, clinical sample limits generalizability, and replication is needed.

While early visual deprivation can hinder some spatial skills, it can also lead to sensory enhancements. Evidence from visually impaired infants is sparse but suggests preserved unisensory orienting and greater reliance on touch alongside reduced multisensory spatial integration and delayed spatially guided action.1,2 Reaching to touch on the body is a spatial task requiring touch to be remapped relative to body posture. Visual impairment could therefore delay this ability if vision calibrates spatial representations, or preserve or enhance it if attention to somatosensory input supports compensation. We tested sighted, low-vision, and blind infants (6–24 months) reaching to vibrotactile targets. Reaching success was comparable across groups and increased with age. Low-vision infants reached more slowly than sighted infants, whereas blind infants did not differ from sighted infants. Thus, body-centered tactile localization can develop without typical visual experience, although degraded visual input may selectively slow somatosensory guidance of action.

In this viewpoint article, Monica Gori and Micah Murray share their perspectives on past, present, and future developments in multisensory technologies and their impact on society, as well as career perspectives for trainees. Using seminal works on the neurobiological bases of multisensory processes and their development as springboards, they discuss how they foresee continued advancements in the technologies for studying multisensory processes and rehabilitating/replacing sensory impairments. They see a strong tendency toward understanding inter- and intra-individual variability in multisensory processes and their plasticity as well as a societal impetus to transition from laboratory-based to applied research with bespoke solutions for individuals. These tendencies also encapsulate current controversies regarding the boundaries of neuroplasticity as well as the potential double-edged sword of AI-based technologies that have tremendous positive impact though perhaps at the ‘cost’ of negative collateral impact on functional capabilities. The domain of multisensory technologies offers trainees a wide breadth of career opportunities not only in academic research, but also in applied/industrial fields. Continued ameliorations in multisensory technologies are an exciting domain at the intersection of applied, basic, and clinical research wherein many inroads remain to be achieved.

Adult painting emerges from a sophisticated multisensory integration between vision, touch, proprioception, and motor control, taking shape as a form of active Bayesian inference about the external environment. The evolutionary origins (and survival value) of such embodied coordination, however, remain poorly explored. Traditional literature views children’s drawing as a passive output of perceptual-motor-cognitive development. This work proposes the opposite hypothesis: that drawing acts as an active form of natural training, serving as an evolutionary laboratory for sensorimotor calibration. Through a parallel analysis between graphic stages and neuroscientific milestones, we propose that each stroke provides persistent and informative feedback. The kinematic parameters of the gesture (velocity, curvature, pressure) are linked to stable visuo-tactile outcomes on the page, surpassing the effectiveness of other traceless motor experiences. Bayesian modeling suggests that drawing may involve iterative active experiments in which predictions about gestural outcomes are generated, compared with observed feedback, and used to update generative models that align internal and external sensory maps. This ecological process could help to learn eye-hand coordination and to update the formation of spatial-bodily representations in a period of life characterized by a fast physical growth of the body parts and maturation of the motor plant. By redefining drawing as developmental training in perceptual and creative growth, the hypothesis opens new perspectives on early multisensory plasticity.

Introduction: Cross-sectioning task requires participants to identify the two-dimensional (2D) internal shape of cross-sectioned three-dimensional (3D) solids. This task demands advanced spatial reasoning abilities, including the mental manipulation of both two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects. While previous research has highlighted the importance of vision in understanding objects’ spatial features, the relationship between successful cross-sectioning and visual impairments remains unclear. Methods: The present study aims to investigate how early-life vision guides the ability to construct and transform spatial representations through touch, using a haptic 3D-printed version of the Santa Barbara Solid Test. Our sample consisted of four groups of participants: early blind ( N = 11), late blind ( N = 8, onset of blindness: after 6 years old), low vision ( N = 5, vision acuity between 3/10 and 1/20), and blindfolded sighted ( N = 13). All participants were asked to haptically explore and recognize cross-sections of 3D-printed solids of varying difficulty levels ( N = 10 trials) and to identify the associated correct section among four options. We analyzed performance using a generalized linear mixed model, with accuracy (correct versus incorrect) as the outcome and group and difficulty as predictors. Results: The group (i.e., onset of blindness) emerged as the only significant predictor for task performance ( p-value < 0.001). In particular, early blind participants show lower probability of correctly identifying cross-section of solids compared to the other groups (all p-values ≤ 0.02). Discussion: These findings show that visual deprivation in the first years of life impacts the development of effective haptic spatial skills, highlighting the need for tailored rehabilitation programs, particularly in the context of multisensory spatial reasoning.

Perinatal and pediatric brain damages in children, such as those caused by perinatal stroke, often results in motor and sensory impairments that compromise autonomy and quality of life. Such conditions may also disrupt multisensory integration, which is essential for goal-directed actions. While previous studies have examined multisensory processing using laboratory-based paradigms, they often lacked ecological validity. To address this issue, we developed MSICLIMB, a novel climbing wall equipped with smart holds that emit auditory (A), visual (V), and audiovisual (VA) cues, which enables the study of multisensory integration in a dynamic, action-oriented context. We compared children with motor impairments to typically developing peers, measuring their reaching times (RT) in response to randomly presented sensory cues. Children with motor impairments exhibited significantly slower RT across all conditions. However, both groups showed faster RT to multisensory stimuli, highlighting the facilitative effect of multisensory integration. RTs improved over trials, particularly in the clinical group, suggesting learning potential. Age was also a significant factor, with older children demonstrating faster responses and reduced group differences. MSICLIMB is an innovative tool that can be used to assess and potentially train multisensory integration through ecologically valid sensorimotor tasks. It has promising applications in both clinical and typical populations.

Visual illusions serve as a window into the altered perceptual experiences of individuals with psychiatric disorders. One such is the induced Roelofs effect, where the perceived position of a small stimulus is shifted toward the midline of a distractor frame surrounding the stimulus, as the shift is more pronounced in individuals with schizophrenia. The present work extends the induced Roelofs effect assessment to bipolar disorder. Healthy controls, patients with bipolar disorder, and patients with schizophrenia were shown a dot stimulus placed inside a frame whose horizontal position could vary, and they were asked to determine whether the dot position was to their left or to their right. The induced Roelofs effect was minimal in healthy controls, large in schizophrenia, and intermediate in bipolar disorder. No association between the effect size and psychotic symptomatology or cognitive abilities was found. Yet, a nonlinear, concave association was found between the total pharmacological load and the illusion size. The results suggest that the illusion is related to alterations in sensory processing, which are common to both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, hence showing their potential utility in clinical evaluations, which currently tend to overlook the sensory domain.