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J Neurophysiol (August 16, 2006). doi:10.1152/jn.00497.2006
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Submitted on May 10, 2006
Accepted on August 10, 2006

Early Experience Determines How the Senses Will Interact

Mark T Wallace1* and Barry E. Stein2

1 Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States
2 Dept. of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mark.wallace{at}vanderbilt.edu.

Multisensory integration refers to the process by which the brain synthesizes information from different senses in order to enhance sensitivity to external events. In the present experiments animals were reared in an altered sensory environment in which visual and auditory stimuli were temporally coupled but originated from different locations. Neurons in the superior colliculus developed a seemingly anomalous form of multisensory integration in which spatially disparate visual-auditory stimuli were integrated in the same way that neurons in normally reared animals integrated visual-auditory stimuli from the same location. The data suggest that the principles governing multisensory integration are highly plastic and that there is no a priori spatial relationship between stimuli from different senses that is required for their integration. Rather, these principles appear to be established early in life based on the specific features of an animal's environment in order to best adapt it to deal with that environment later in life.




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