Multisensory integration in neurons of the medial pulvinar of macaque monkey

Anne-Laure Vittek (1) , Cécile Juan (1) , Lionel Nowak (1) , Pascal Girard (1, 2) , Céline Cappe (1)

1 CERCO UMR5549 - Centre de recherche cerveau et cognition
2 CHU Toulouse - Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Toulouse

Abstract The pulvinar is a heterogeneous thalamic nucleus, which is well developed in primates. One of its subdivisions, the medial pulvinar, is connected to many cortical areas, including the visual, auditory, and somatosensory cortices, as well as with multisensory areas and premotor areas. However, except for the visual modality, little is known about its sensory functions. A hypothesis is that, as a region of convergence of information from different sensory modalities, the medial pulvinar plays a role in multisensory integration. To test this hypothesis, 2 macaque monkeys were trained to a fixation task and the responses of single-units to visual, auditory, and auditory–visual stimuli were examined. Analysis revealed auditory, visual, and multisensory neurons in the medial pulvinar. It also revealed multisensory integration in this structure, mainly suppressive (the audiovisual response is less than the strongest unisensory response) and subadditive (the audiovisual response is less than the sum of the auditory and the visual responses). These findings suggest that the medial pulvinar is involved in multisensory integration.

Mots clés: audiovisual; medial pulvinar; multisensory; single-units

Domaines: Neurobiologie; Sciences cognitives

Anne-Laure Vittek, Cécile Juan, Lionel Nowak, Pascal Girard, Céline Cappe. Multisensory integration in neurons of the medial pulvinar of macaque monkey. Cerebral Cortex, 2022, ⟨10.1093/cercor/bhac337⟩. ⟨hal-03869543⟩