Abstract
We experience the world through multiple senses simultaneously. To better understand mechanisms of multisensory processing we ask whether inputs from two senses (auditory and visual) can interact and drive plasticity in neural-circuits of the primary visual cortex (V1). Using genetically-encoded voltage and calcium indicators, we find coincident audio-visual experience modifies both the supra and subthreshold response properties of neurons in L2/3 of mouse V1. Specifically, we find that after audio-visual pairing, a subset of multimodal neurons develops enhanced auditory responses to the paired auditory stimulus. This cross-modal plasticity persists over days and is reflected in the strengthening of small functional networks of L2/3 neurons. We find V1 processes coincident auditory and visual events by strengthening functional associations between feature specific assemblies of multimodal neurons during bouts of sensory driven co-activity, leaving a trace of multisensory experience in the cortical network.
Highlights
We experience the world through multiple senses simultaneously
Neurons in the primary sensory cortex that respond to multiple sensory modalities may play a role in binding multisensory information[13]
We asked how inputs from two senses interact in neural-circuits of V1, and whether epochs of coincident sensory activity can drive neural plasticity or adaptation. We addressed these questions using a combination of GEVI and GECI imaging and found that coincident audio-visual pairing can modify neural-circuit properties
Summary
We experience the world through multiple senses simultaneously. To better understand mechanisms of multisensory processing we ask whether inputs from two senses (auditory and visual) can interact and drive plasticity in neural-circuits of the primary visual cortex (V1). Work in primary sensory areas challenges this view, finding evidence for crossmodal sensory activity[3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] Such cross-modal activity has been proposed to facilitate the binding and integration of multisensory events, but the neural-circuit mechanisms supporting this process are unclear[11,12]. We propose that sound-driven enhancement of visual activity is a circuit mechanism that promotes periods of co-activity between subsets of multimodal neurons leading to strengthening of specific sensory assemblies during audio-visual experience This form of network plasticity leaves a trace of multisensory experience in the cortex
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