Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA.
Prog Brain Res. 2011;191:145-63. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-444-53752-2.00007-2.
Neurons in the midbrain superior colliculus (SC) have the ability to integrate information from different senses to profoundly increase their sensitivity to external events. This not only enhances an organism's ability to detect and localize these events, but to program appropriate motor responses to them. The survival value of this process of multisensory integration is self-evident, and its physiological and behavioral manifestations have been studied extensively in adult and developing cats and monkeys. These studies have revealed, that contrary to expectations based on some developmental theories this process is not present in the newborn's brain. The data show that is acquired only gradually during postnatal life as a consequence of at least two factors: the maturation of cooperative interactions between association cortex and the SC, and extensive experience with cross-modal cues. Using these factors, the brain is able to craft the underlying neural circuits and the fundamental principles that govern multisensory integration so that they are adapted to the ecological circumstances in which they will be used.
中脑上丘的神经元具有整合来自不同感觉的信息的能力，从而极大地提高其对外界事件的敏感性。这不仅增强了生物体检测和定位这些事件的能力，还有助于对其做出适当的运动反应。这种多感觉整合的过程具有明显的生存价值，其生理和行为表现已在成年和发育中的猫和猴子中得到广泛研究。这些研究表明，与一些发育理论的预期相反，这个过程在新生儿的大脑中并不存在。数据表明，它是在出生后逐渐获得的，这是至少两个因素的结果：联合皮层和上丘之间协同相互作用的成熟，以及对跨模态线索的广泛体验。利用这些因素，大脑能够构建出基本的神经回路和支配多感觉整合的基本原理，使它们适应于其将被使用的生态环境。
