Integrating visual and auditory information in a decision-making neuron

MEDAN, VIOLETA; OTERO CORONEL, SANTIAGO

Córdoba

Congreso; Congreso de la Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencias; 2018

Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencias

One fundamental task of the nervous system is to make adaptive behavioral decisions based on multiple sources of sensory information. In this context, multimodal integration is the process by which different sensory components of an event are combined to form a single percept. Multimodal integration increases the probability of detecting a relevant event, especially when individual cues are weak or ambiguous.In fish, the circuit responsible for initiating the escape response is centered on the paired Mauthner cells (M-cell). These neurons are sensory integrators that receive both visual and auditory inputs and upon reaching firing threshold trigger the escape response. This relatively simple circuit provides a unique opportunity to dissect the mechanisms of multimodal integration at neuronal level.We performed in vivo intracellular recordings in M-cells of goldfish while the animals were stimulated with auditory or visual signals. Auditory signals were produced by a loudspeaker while visual signals consisted on trains of electrical stimulation of the optic tectum. We recorded M-cell responses to either unimodal stimuli or multimodal combinations of auditory and visual stimuli. Our results show that multimodal stimuli produce an enhancement of the M-cell response partly dependent of the delay between the auditory and visual stimuli. This underlines the importance of the temporal coherence of individual components of a multimodal signal to be effectively integrated.