Evaluating the Operations Underlying Multisensory Integration in the Cat Superior Colliculus

Terrence R. Stanford · Stephan Quessy · Barry E. Stein

314 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Neuroscience

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Multisensory perception and integration Visual perception and processing mechanisms Neural dynamics and brain function

Abstract

It is well established that superior colliculus (SC) multisensory neurons integrate cues from different senses; however, the mechanisms responsible for producing multisensory responses are poorly understood. Previous studies have shown that spatially congruent cues from different modalities (e.g., auditory and visual) yield enhanced responses and that the greatest relative enhancements occur for combinations of the least effective modality-specific stimuli. Although these phenomena are well documented, little is known about the mechanisms that underlie them, because no study has systematically examined the operation that multisensory neurons perform on their modality-specific inputs. The goal of this study was to evaluate the computations that multisensory neurons perform in combining the influences of stimuli from two modalities. The extracellular activities of single neurons in the SC of the cat were recorded in response to visual, auditory, and bimodal visual-auditory stimulation. Each neuron was tested across a range of stimulus intensities and multisensory responses evaluated against the null hypothesis of simple summation of unisensory influences. We found that the multisensory response could be superadditive, additive, or subadditive but that the computation was strongly dictated by the efficacies of the modality-specific stimulus components. Superadditivity was most common within a restricted range of near-threshold stimulus efficacies, whereas for the majority of stimuli, response magnitudes were consistent with the linear summation of modality-specific influences. In addition to providing a constraint for developing models of multisensory integration, the relationship between response mode and stimulus efficacy emphasizes the importance of considering stimulus parameters when inducing or interpreting multisensory phenomena.

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References

1994The merging of the senses 1983Interactions Among Converging Sensory Inputs in the Superior Colliculus 1986Translation of sensory signals into commands for control of saccadic eye movements: role of primate superior colliculus 1987Determinants of multisensory integration in superior colliculus neurons. I. Temporal factors 1989Behavioral Indices of Multisensory Integration: Orientation to Visual Cues is Affected by Auditory Stimuli 1985Integration of visual and auditory information in bimodal neurones in the guinea-pig superior colliculus

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