Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, Center for Neuroscience, Faculty of Science, University of Amsterdam, 1098 XH Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, Center for Neuroscience, Faculty of Science, University of Amsterdam, 1098 XH Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Research Priority Program Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, 1098 XH Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Cell Rep. 2020 May 12;31(6):107636. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.107636.
We act upon stimuli in our surrounding environment by gathering the multisensory information they convey and by integrating this information to decide on a behavioral action. We hypothesized that the anterolateral secondary visual cortex (area AL) of the mouse brain may serve as a hub for sensorimotor transformation of audiovisual information. We imaged neuronal activity in primary visual cortex (V1) and AL of the mouse during a detection task using visual, auditory, and audiovisual stimuli. We found that AL neurons were more sensitive to weak uni- and multisensory stimuli compared to V1. Depending on contrast, different subsets of AL and V1 neurons showed cross-modal modulation of visual responses. During audiovisual stimulation, AL neurons showed stronger differentiation of behaviorally reported versus unreported stimuli compared to V1, whereas V1 showed this distinction during unisensory visual stimulation. Thus, neural population activity in area AL correlates more closely with multisensory detection behavior than V1.
我们通过收集周围环境刺激所传达的多感官信息，并整合这些信息来决定行为动作。我们假设，老鼠大脑的前外侧次级视觉皮层（AL）可能是视听信息感觉运动转换的中枢。我们在使用视觉、听觉和视听刺激进行检测任务时，对老鼠初级视觉皮层（V1）和 AL 的神经元活动进行了成像。我们发现，与 V1 相比，AL 神经元对弱的单和多感官刺激更敏感。根据对比度的不同，不同的 AL 和 V1 神经元子集显示出视觉反应的跨模态调制。在视听刺激期间，与 V1 相比，AL 神经元对行为报告和未报告的刺激表现出更强的分化，而 V1 在单感官视觉刺激期间表现出这种区别。因此，与 V1 相比，AL 区域的神经元群体活动与多感官检测行为的相关性更密切。
