Asymmetric Multisensory Interactions of Visual and Somatosensory Responses in a Region of the Rat Parietal Cortex.docVIP

AsymmetricMultisensoryInteractionsofVisualand SomatosensoryResponsesinaRegionoftheRatParietal Cortex MichaelT.Lippert1,4*,KentarohTakagaki1,ChristophKayser2,3.,FrankW.Ohl1,4,5. 1Department Systems Physiology of Learning, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany, 2Departmen Physiology of Cognitive Processes, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tu¨bingen, Germany, 3Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom, 4Institute of Biology,Otto-von-GuerickeUniversityMagdeburg,Germany,5CenterforBehavioralBrainSciences,Magdeburg,Germany Abstract Perceptiongreatlybenefitsfromintegratingmultiplesensorycuesintoaunifiedpercept.Tostudytheneuralmechanisms of sensory integration, model systems are required that allow the simultaneous assessment of activity and the use of techniquestoaffectindividualneuralprocessesinbehavinganimals.Whilerodentsqualifyfortheserequirements,littleis knownaboutmultisensoryintegrationandareasinvolvedforthispurposeintherodent.Usingopticalimagingcombined with laminar electrophysiological recordings, the rat parietal cortex was identified as an area where visual and somatosensory inputs converge and interact. Our results reveal similar response patterns to visual and somatosensory stimuli at the level of current source density (CSD) responses and multi-unit responses within a strip in parietal cortex. Surprisingly,aselectiveasymmetrywasobservedinmultisensoryinteractions:whenthesomatosensoryresponsepreceded the visual response, supra-linear summation of CSD was observed, but the reverse stimulus order resulted in sub-linear effectsintheCSD.Thisasymmetrywasnotpresentinmulti-unitactivityhowever,whichshowedconsistentlysub-linear interactions. These interactions were restricted to a specific temporal window, and pharmacological tests revealed significantlocalintra-corticalcontributionstothisphenomenon.Ourresultshighlighttherodentparietalcortexasasystem tomodeltheneuralunderpinningsofmultisens