title: Multisensory convergence at human temporo-parietal junction - epicortical recording of evoked responses.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Previous lesion studies in patients and functional imaging studies in normal subjects have led to the notion that the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) has an integrative function for multisensory inputs. However, its electrophysiological properties such as response latencies and distributions of responses to various stimulus modalities in humans have not been fully investigated. The aim of the study is to clarify this issue.
  
  
  METHODS
  We recorded evoked potentials to different kinds of sensory stimuli including somatosensory, auditory and visual modalities in 6 patients with intractable partial epilepsy, who underwent chronic implantation of subdural electrodes in TPJ for presurgical evaluation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In 5 out of 6 subjects, at least one electrode located in TPJ for each subject showed a maximum somatosensory evoked response commonly to electric, passive joint motion and pain stimuli. These electrodes showed the maximum responses also to tone stimuli in all of 4 subjects studied, and to visual motion stimuli in 3 out of 5 subjects studied. The polarity was consistent regardless of the stimulus modality within each individual subject, although the anatomical location, polarity and latency varied among subjects.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A small area in TPJ for each individual subject receives sensory information of multiple modalities possibly coming from different receptive sites, although the electrophysiological properties of the responses may vary among subjects.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We confirmed the convergence of somatosensory, auditory and visual evoked responses at human TPJ.
authors.affiliation: Human Brain Research Center, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Shogoin, Sakyo, Kyoto 606-8507, Japan.
authors.forename: Masao
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Matsuhashi
authors.forename: Akio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ikeda
authors.forename: Shinji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ohara
authors.forename: Riki
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Matsumoto
authors.forename: Junichi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yamamoto
authors.forename: Motohiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Takayama
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Satow
authors.forename: Tahamina
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Begum
authors.forename: Keiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Usui
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nagamine
authors.forename: Nobuhiro
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mikuni
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Takahashi
authors.forename: Susumu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Miyamoto
authors.forename: Hidenao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fukuyama
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shibasaki
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D005073:Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007596:Joints; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009038:Motion; D010146:Pain / Q000503:physiopathology; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012677:Sensation; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*