Stein Barry E
Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, School of Medicine, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, 27157-1010, USA.
Exp Brain Res. 2005 Oct;166(3-4):305-15. doi: 10.1007/s00221-005-2372-0. Epub 2005 Jun 30.
The anterior ectosylvian (AES) and rostral lateral suprasylvian (rLS) sulci send critical signals to multisensory superior colliculus (SC) neurons that enable them to integrate information from different senses. When either of these areas is temporarily deactivated in adult animals, the ability of SC neurons to integrate multisensory information and, thereby, enhance their responses to cross-modal stimuli is temporarily compromised. As a consequence, the ability to use cross-modal stimuli to enhance SC-mediated behavioral performance is also compromised. In contrast, removal of either one of these areas during early life has little effect on the development of multisensory processes in the SC or on SC-mediated multisensory behaviors and these animals seem very similar to normal controls. These observations suggest that there is considerable plasticity in these cortico-collicular systems during early life, with each area able to compensate for the early loss of the other. However, when both AES and rLS are removed early in life, there appears to be no compensation. The SC neurons now deal with sensory stimuli, even those embedded in multisensory complexes, as if they were there alone, precluding any SC-mediated behavioral benefit to cross-modal stimuli.
前外侧薛氏沟（AES）和吻侧外侧薛氏沟（rLS）向多感觉上丘（SC）神经元发送关键信号，使它们能够整合来自不同感觉的信息。在成年动物中，当这些区域中的任何一个暂时失活时，SC神经元整合多感觉信息的能力，从而增强它们对跨模态刺激的反应能力会暂时受损。因此，利用跨模态刺激来增强SC介导的行为表现的能力也会受损。相比之下，在生命早期切除这些区域中的任何一个，对SC中多感觉过程的发育或对SC介导的多感觉行为几乎没有影响，这些动物看起来与正常对照组非常相似。这些观察结果表明，在生命早期，这些皮质-丘系系统具有相当大的可塑性，每个区域都能够补偿另一个区域的早期缺失。然而，当在生命早期同时切除AES和rLS时，似乎没有补偿作用。现在，SC神经元处理感觉刺激，即使是那些包含在多感觉复合体中的刺激，就好像它们是单独存在的一样，排除了任何SC介导的对跨模态刺激的行为益处。
