Contextual modulation of primary visual cortex by auditory signals

Abstract

Early visual cortex receives non-feedforward input from lateral and top-down connections (Muckli & Petro 2013 Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 23, 195–201. (doi:10.1016/j.conb.2013.01.02010.1016/j.conb.2013.01.020)), including long-range projections from auditory areas. Early visual cortex can code for high-level auditory information, with neural patterns representing natural sound stimulation (Vetter et al. 2014 Curr. Biol. 24, 1256–1262. (doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.04.02010.1016/j.cub.2014.04.020)). We discuss a number of questions arising from these findings. What is the adaptive function of bimodal representations in visual cortex? What type of information projects from auditory to visual cortex? What are the anatomical constraints of auditory information in V1, for example, periphery versus fovea, superficial versus deep cortical layers? Is there a putative neural mechanism we can infer from human neuroimaging data and recent theoretical accounts of cortex? We also present data showing we can read out high-level auditory information from the activation patterns of early visual cortex even when visual cortex receives simple visual stimulation, suggesting independent channels for visual and auditory signals in V1. We speculate which cellular mechanisms allow V1 to be contextually modulated by auditory input to facilitate perception, cognition and behaviour. Beyond cortical feedback that facilitates perception, we argue that there is also feedback serving counterfactual processing during imagery, dreaming and mind wandering, which is not relevant for immediate perception but for behaviour and cognition over a longer time frame.This article is part of the themed issue ‘Auditory and visual scene analysis’.

The left lateral occipital cortex exhibits decreased thickness in children with sensorineural hearing loss

“…Modulations of visual reactivity by auditory inputs have been evidenced in human infants (Watanabe et al, 2013), adults (Vetter et al, 2014; Petro et al, 2017), and mice (Iurilli et al, 2012). Tracer studies in the macaque monkey showed a direct connection between primary visual and auditory areas (Rockland and Ojima, 2003).…”

Resolving the neural dynamics of visual and auditory scene processing in the human brain: a methodological approach

“…Previous research has focused on revealing either the temporal or the spatial dimension. Integrated methods such as fMRI–M/EEG fusion [30,58] might yield insight into how the information flows in the network of regions related to scene processing in the visual [2] and auditory [1] cortical networks and their interaction [78]. Revealing the order of, and thus input–output relationships between, the nodes of the scene-processing cortical network will aid understanding of scene processing at the representational and algorithmic levels [74].…”

Laminar fMRI: Applications for cognitive neuroscience

“…For example, auditory stimulation can elicit specific activation patterns in human early visual cortex (Petro, Paton, & Muckli, 2017;Vetter, Smith, & Muckli, 2014).…”