IMNC UMR 8165, Université Paris Sud, Université Paris Saclay CNRS Orsay, Orsay, F-91405, France.
Unité de Biologie Fonctionnelle et Adaptative, UMR 8251, Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, CNRS, F-75205, Paris, France.
Sci Rep. 2019 Aug 2;9(1):11236. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-47503-y.
Multisensory interactions are essential to make sense of the environment by transforming the mosaic of sensory inputs received by the organism into a unified perception. Brain rhythms allow coherent processing within areas or between distant brain regions and could thus be instrumental in functionally connecting remote brain areas in the context of multisensory interactions. Still, odor and sound processing relate to two sensory systems with specific anatomofunctional characteristics. How does the brain handle their association? Rats were challenged to discriminate between unisensory stimulation (odor or sound) and the multisensory combination of both. During learning, we observed a progressive establishment of high power beta oscillations (15-35 Hz) spanning on the olfactory bulb, the piriform cortex and the perirhinal cortex, but not the primary auditory cortex. In the piriform cortex, beta oscillations power was higher in the multisensory condition compared to the presentation of the odor alone. Furthermore, in the olfactory structures, the sound alone was able to elicit a beta oscillatory response. These findings emphasize the functional differences between olfactory and auditory cortices and reveal that beta oscillations contribute to the memory formation of the multisensory association.
多感觉交互对于将生物体接收到的感觉输入的马赛克转化为统一的感知至关重要。脑节律允许在区域内或在遥远的大脑区域之间进行连贯的处理，因此在多感觉交互的背景下，它可能有助于功能连接远程大脑区域。尽管如此，气味和声音处理涉及到具有特定解剖功能特征的两个感觉系统。大脑如何处理它们的关联？研究人员让老鼠辨别单感觉刺激（气味或声音）和两者的多感觉组合。在学习过程中，我们观察到高功率β振荡（15-35 Hz）在嗅球、梨状皮层和边缘皮层上逐渐建立，但不在初级听觉皮层上。在梨状皮层中，与单独呈现气味相比，多感觉条件下的β振荡功率更高。此外，在嗅觉结构中，单独的声音也能够引发β振荡反应。这些发现强调了嗅觉和听觉皮层之间的功能差异，并揭示了β振荡有助于多感觉关联的记忆形成。
