Spatial receptive field shift by preceding cross‐modal stimulation in the cat superior colliculus

Abstract

Psychophysical studies have shown that the different senses can be spatially entrained by each other. This can be observed in certain phenomena, such as ventriloquism, in which a visual stimulus can attract the perceived location of a spatially discordant sound. However, the neural mechanism underlying this cross-modal spatial recalibration has remained unclear, as has whether it takes place dynamically. We explored these issues in multisensory neurons of the cat superior colliculus (SC), a midbrain structure that involves both cross-modal and sensorimotor integration. Sequential cross-modal stimulation showed that the preceding stimulus can shift the receptive field (RF) of the lagging response. This cross-modal spatial calibration took place in both auditory and visual RFs, although auditory RFs shifted slightly more. By contrast, if a preceding stimulus was from the same modality, it failed to induce a similarly substantial RF shift. The extent of the RF shift was dependent on both temporal and spatial gaps between the preceding and following stimuli, as well as the salience of the preceding stimulus. A narrow time gap and high stimulus salience were able to induce larger RF shifts. In addition, when both visual and auditory stimuli were presented simultaneously, a substantial RF shift toward the location-fixed stimulus was also induced. These results, taken together, reveal an online cross-modal process and reflect the details of the organization of SC inter-sensory spatial calibration.

Choice-dependent cross-modal interaction in the medial prefrontal cortex of rats

“…Similar results were found in other studies [67][68][69]. However, this result is quite different from earlier studies conducted in the superior colliculus and other sensory cortical areas that primarily showed enhanced multisensory responses to spatiotemporally congruent cues [3,4,70,71]. This is reasonable, considering that different brain areas have different functional goals.…”

“…During this process, the brain must decide what sensory inputs are related and what integrative strategy is appropriate. In the past three decades, this process of crossmodal interaction (CMI) or multisensory integration has been widely examined in many brain areas such as superior colliculus, and both primary sensory and association cortices [1][2][3][4][5][6]. A series of integrative principles that govern this process have been derived (i.e., spatial, temporal, and inverse effectiveness), and testing has shown them to be operant in many brain areas [2].…”

Context-dependent cross-modal interaction in the medial prefrontal cortex of rats

“…Similar results were found in other studies [64][65][66]. However, this result is quite different from earlier studies conducted in the superior colliculus and other sensory cortical areas that primarily showed enhanced multisensory responses to spatiotemporally congruent cues [3,4,67,68]. This is reasonable, considering that different brain areas have different functional goals.…”

“…During this process, the brain must decide what sensory inputs are related and what integrative strategy is appropriate. In the past three decades, this process of cross-modal interaction (CMI) or multisensory integration has been widely examined in many brain areas such as superior colliculus, and both primary sensory and association cortices [1][2][3][4][5][6]. A series of integrative principles that govern this process have been derived (i.e., spatial, temporal, and inverse effectiveness), and testing has shown them to be operant in many brain areas [2].…”

Functional connectivity from Zona Incerta Cells Coexpressing Dopamine and GABA to the Superior Colliculus

“…The SC is an integration center for sensorimotor inputs, including auditory (Xu et al, 2018), visual and somatosensory stimuli, as well as mediating motor responses (Drager and Hubel, 1976). It is well known for its role in saccadic eye movements (Sparks et al, 1990) and is also involved in avoidance and defensive behaviours (Comoli et al, 2012;Shang et al, 2015).…”