title: Auditory thalamus integrates visual inputs into behavioral gains.
abstract: By binding multisensory signals, we get robust percepts and respond to our surroundings more correctly and quickly. How and where does the brain link cross-modal sensory information to produce such behavioral advantages? The classical role of sensory thalamus is to relay modality-specific information to the cortex. Here we find that, in the rat thalamus, visual cues influence auditory responses, which have two distinct components: an early phasic one followed by a late gradual buildup that peaks before reward. Although both bimodal presentation and reward value had similar effects on behavioral performance, the cross-modal effect on neural activity showed unique temporal dynamics: it affected the amplitude of the early component and starting level of the late component, whereas reward value affected only the slope of the late component. These results demonstrate that cross-modal cueing modulates gain in the sensory thalamus, potentially providing a priming influence on the choice of an optimal behavior.
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, 1-1-1 Umezono, Tsukuba 305-8568, Japan.
authors.forename: Yutaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Komura
authors.forename: Ryoi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tamura
authors.forename: Teruko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Uwano
authors.forename: Hisao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nishijo
authors.forename: Taketoshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ono
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D001931:Brain Mapping; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012201:Reward; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013788:Thalamus / Q000502:physiology*; D014795:Visual Pathways / Q000502:physiology*