Properties of cross-modal occipital responses in early blindness: An ALE meta-analysis

•ALE meta-analysis reveals distributed brain networks for object and spatial functions in individuals with early blindness.•ALE contrast analysis reveals specific activations in the left cuneus and lingual gyrus for language function, suggesting a reverse hierarchical organization of the visual cortex for early blind individuals.•The findings contribute to visual rehabilitation in blind individuals by revealing the function-dependent and sensory-independent networks during nonvisual processing.