Differential patterns of multisensory interactions in core and belt areas of human auditory cortex.
The auditory cortex is anatomically segregated into a central core and a peripheral belt region, which exhibit differences in preference to bandpassed noise and in temporal patterns of response to acoustic stimuli. While it has been shown that visual stimuli can modify response magnitude in auditory cortex, little is known about differential patterns of multisensory interactions in core and belt. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and examined the influence of a short visual stimulus presented prior to acoustic stimulation on the spatial pattern of blood oxygen level-dependent signal response in auditory cortex. Consistent with crossmodal inhibition, the light produced a suppression of signal response in a cortical region corresponding to the core. In the surrounding areas corresponding to the belt regions, however, we found an inverse modulation with an increasing signal in centrifugal direction. Our data suggest that crossmodal effects are differentially modulated according to the hierarchical core-belt organization of auditory cortex.
University Hospital of Clinical Psychiatry, University of Bern, 3000 Bern, Switzerland. lehmann@puk.unibe.ch
Christoph
C
Lehmann
Marcus
M
Herdener
Fabrizio
F
Esposito
Daniela
D
Hubl
Francesco
F
di Salle
Klaus
K
Scheffler
Dominik R
DR
Bach
Andrea
A
Federspiel
Robert
R
Kretz
Thomas
T
Dierks
Erich
E
Seifritz
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D001306:Auditory Pathways / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002450:Cell Communication / Q000502:physiology*; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005425:Flicker Fusion / Q000502:physiology*; D006439:Hemodynamics / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009430:Neural Analyzers; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology*
D010100:Oxygen