Multisensory Integration in Time and Space. (360G-Wellcome-110120_Z_15_Z)

Although the majority of neuroscience research focuses on isolated sensory cues, in natural environments, the brain is invariably faced with a vast array of sensory stimuli. Animals must continually evaluate which of these multimodal cues should be associated with a single physical object, and which are separate. To this end, animals, including humans, take advantage of two types of correlation: spatial and temporal. Psychophysical studies of this phenomena are abundant, but neural recordings re main minimal and have been limited to specific brain areas like the superior colliculus and parietal cortex. In addition, past work has been focused on spatial correlations between multisensory cues, largely ignoring the effects of temporal correlations. I propose to characterize both the spatial and the temporal aspects of multisensory integration by exploiting advanced behavioral and recording techniques in the mouse cortex. I will 1) train mice to perform novel behavioral tasks which neces sitate multisensory integration, 2) identify cortical regions responding to audiovisual correlations in space and time using widefield imaging and two-photon microscopy during passive viewing, and 3) identify the neural correlates of multisensory integration using optogenetic perturbations and two-photon imaging during behavioral tasks.