Virtual Acoustic Space (VAS) is a research and development project on the perception of space using only sound. A portable electronic prototype that allows blind people to receive spatial information of their surroundings has been developed This information is perceived via an audible image using Head Related Transfer Function (HRTFs) processed sounds. The main goal is to create for the user the illusion that the surrounding objects are covered by small sound continuously emitting sources in a particular and sustained way. Therefore, a virtual acoustic world is generated, where a physical object emit sounds from all the coordinates of its surface. Our results validate the hypothesis that, it is possible to generate an experience of global and sustained presence of diferent objects inside the perception field from these stimuli, with the same shape, dimensions and location as the real environment. Our objectives are now focused on: a better delimitation of the observed capabilities, the study of the developed prototype in everyday life conditions, on exploring how blindpeople learn to use new strategies to improve their perception ofthe environment and the exploration of the possible cortical brain areas involved in this process, usingfunctional imaging techniques.

Ever since the publication of "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" by Charles Darwin in 1859, many theories have been put forward regarding the reasons as to why animals and humans are different. Whilst there was an initial tendency to focus on the differences apparent in the main anatomic characteristics of the human body, in more recent time research has concentrated on differences that are evident both in the anatomy and in that of the workings of the human brain. While in the past, the essence of the human being was placed on the pelvic structure, the creation of tools or even the intermaxillary bone, the introduction of new technology and cerebral imaging is enabling us to glean previously unthinkable information regarding the evolution of specific structures and parts of the brain. All these discoveries can be associated with new theories based on a better understanding of the workings of the human mind. Hence, as a result of an enormous joint effort, a comprehensible description of the cause of the origin of mankind is emerging. This allows "love", once considered as merely a simple emotion, to be at the very core of explaining the evolutionary characteristics of the human being.

cerebrales concretas con algunas características del procesamiento cognitivo en la adolescencia. La maduración de porciones de los lóbulos frontales y su relación con circuitos y estructuras cerebrales como, por ejemplo, el sistema límbico, asociado a la experiencia y expresión emocional, o los ganglios basales, a su vez implicados en la regulación de la actividad motora, podrían ser los responsables de la impulsividad, el descontrol emocional, la proclividad a la aparición de conductas adictivas, los desórdenes afectivos, la esquizofrenia, la personalidad antisocial, etc., que pueden presentarse en esta etapa del desarrollo. Diferencias sutiles neuroanatómicas y funcionales entre ambos sexos podrían estar implicadas en la mayor predisposición masculina a las conductas de riesgo. Dado el papel fundamental de la experiencia en la maduración cerebral programada desde el genotipo del individuo, especialmente en momentos específicos del desarrollo cerebral -los conocidos como "períodos críticos del desarrollo"-parece necesario, tanto avanzar en el conocimiento de las bases neurobiológicas del desarrollo cognitivo en la adolescencia, como precisar "el modo" en el que la experiencia afecta al desarrollo de estas estructuras y circuitos, especialmente en aquellos implicados en la adquisición de normas éticas de conducta. Palabras clave: Adolescencia, plasticidad cerebral, período crítico del desarrollo cerebral, emoción, motivación, lóbulos frontales, núcleo accumbens, área tegmental ventral, dopamina, corteza orbitofrontal.

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