Submitted on March 11, 2009
Revised on April 27, 2009
Accepted on April 27, 2009
Touching sounds: thalamo-cortical plasticity and the neural basis of multisensory integration
Marcus J. Naumer1* and Jasper J.F. van den Bosch1
1 Goethe University Frankfurt
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: m.j.naumer{at}med.uni-frankfurt.de.
To date, non-invasive neuroimaging research on multisensory perception has focused on cortical activations. In a series of elegant fMRI experiments, Beauchamp and Ro (2008) recently investigated altered cortical activations associated with acquired sound-touch synaesthesia resulting from a thalamic lesion. Their findings highlight the important role of intact thalamo-cortical projections for preventing illusory crossmodal perception and for underlying reliable multisensory integration.
