Blindness Resting State

This project includes resting state data for 30 congenitally blind adults and 50 blindfolded sighted controls. All blind participants had minimal light perception from birth at most. These participants are blind due to conditions affecting the eye or optic nerve, rather than brain damage. Cause of blindness information is provided in the aggregate to protect participant privacy. Both blind and sighted participants had no known cognitive or neurological disabilities, as determined through self-report. A subset of the 30 sighted controls can be selected to create a group similar in age and education to the blind group. Participants underwent 1 to 4 resting state scans, each comprising 240 volumes (average scan time = 710.4 seconds per person). During the scans, participants were instructed to relax while staying awake. Sighted participants wore light-excluding blindfolds to ensure uniform light conditions across groups during the scans. T1-weighted anatomical images were also collected. Only the structural and functional images in standard space were shared in this project, in accordance with IRB requirements. For details on image acquisition parameters and data preprocessing methods, please refer to the data description file.<br>