Neuronal Encoding of Multisensory Motion Features in the Rat Associative Parietal Cortex

• Published in: Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991) Vol. 30; no. 10; pp. 5372 - 5386
• Main Authors: Caron-Guyon, Jeanne, Corbo, Julien, Zennou-Azogui, Yoh’i, Xerri, Christian, Kavounoudias, Anne, Catz, Nicolas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Oxford University Press 03.09.2020; Oxford University Press (OUP)
• Subjects: Animals; Life Sciences; Male; Motion Perception - physiology; Neurons - physiology; Parietal Lobe - physiology; Photic Stimulation; Rats, Long-Evans; Somatosensory Cortex - physiology; Touch Perception - physiology; Visual Cortex - physiology; Voltage-Sensitive Dye Imaging; multisensory integration; somatosensory; visual; parietal cortex; population decoding
• ISSN: 1047-3211; 1460-2199
• DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa118

Abstract Motion perception is facilitated by the interplay of various sensory channels. In rodents, the cortical areas involved in multisensory motion coding remain to be identified. Using voltage-sensitive-dye imaging, we revealed a visuo–tactile convergent region that anatomically corresponds to the associative parietal cortex (APC). Single unit responses to moving visual gratings or whiskers deflections revealed a specific coding of motion characteristics strikingly found in both sensory modalities. The heteromodality of this region was further supported by a large proportion of bimodal neurons and by a classification procedure revealing that APC carries information about motion features, sensory origin and multisensory direction-congruency. Altogether, the results point to a central role of APC in multisensory integration for motion perception.