Cross-Modal Interaction and Integration Through Stimulus-Specific Adaptation in the Thalamic Reticular Nucleus of Rats.

Abstract

Stimulus-specific adaptation (SSA), defined as a decrease in responses to a common stimulus that only partially generalizes to other rare stimuli, is a widespread phenomenon in the brain that is believed to be related to novelty detection. Although cross-modal sensory processing is also a widespread phenomenon, the interaction between the two phenomena is not well understood. In this study, the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), which is regarded as a hub of the attentional system that contains multi-modal neurons, was investigated. The results showed that SSA existed in an interactive oddball stimulation, which mimics stimulation changes from one modality to another. In the bimodal integration, SSA to bimodal stimulation was stronger than to visual stimulation alone but similar to auditory stimulation alone, which indicated a limited integrative effect. Collectively, the present results provide evidence for independent cross-modal processing in bimodal TRN neurons.