Sensory convergence in the parieto-insular vestibular cortex

Abstract

Vestibular signals are pervasive throughout the central nervous system, including the cortex, where they likely play different roles than they do in the better studied brainstem. Little is known about the parieto-insular vestibular cortex (PIVC), an area of the cortex with prominent vestibular inputs. Neural activity was recorded in the PIVC of rhesus macaques during combinations of head, body, and visual target rotations. Activity of many PIVC neurons was correlated with the motion of the head in space (vestibular), the twist of the neck (proprioceptive), and the motion of a visual target, but was not associated with eye movement. PIVC neurons responded most commonly to more than one stimulus, and responses to combined movements could often be approximated by a combination of the individual sensitivities to head, neck, and target motion. The pattern of visual, vestibular, and somatic sensitivities on PIVC neurons displayed a continuous range, with some cells strongly responding to one or two of the stimulus modalities while other cells responded to any type of motion equivalently. The PIVC contains multisensory convergence of self-motion cues with external visual object motion information, such that neurons do not represent a specific transformation of any one sensory input. Instead, the PIVC neuron population may define the movement of head, body, and external visual objects in space and relative to one another. This comparison of self and external movement is consistent with insular cortex functions related to monitoring and explains many disparate findings of previous studies.

Altered brain function in persistent postural perceptual dizziness: A study on resting state functional connectivity

“…The human vestibular cortex is centered in the OP2 region of the opercular cortices (zu Eulenburg et al, ) and together with adjacent areas of the insula and temporal‐parietal junction constitutes the human homologue of the parieto‐insular vestibular cortex (PIVC) that has been identified in other species (Eickhoff, Weiss, Amunts, Fink, & Zilles, ). Although several brain regions are known to be involved in self‐motion perception (Baier et al, ; Kaski et al, ; Nigmatullina et al, ), the insular and opercular cortices play an important role in multisensory integration of space‐motion information for self‐motion perception (Shinder & Newlands, ). These findings are consistent with reduced activity and connectivity of the PIVC, hippocampus and anterior insula observed in patients with CSD in a previous fMRI study (Indovina et al, ).…”

Oscillatory neural responses evoked by natural vestibular stimuli in humans

“…These areas form a cortical network of which the core is presumed to be located in the "parieto-insular vestibular cortex" (PIVC; Guldin and Grüsser 1998). Recently, descriptions of vestibular neurons' spatiotemporal tuning in these cortical regions have been achieved during three-dimensional passive rotations/ translations on motion platforms in nonhuman primates (e.g., Chen et al 2011;Shinder and Newlands 2014;Takahashi et al 2007).Investigations of the human vestibular cortex are challenging because neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, PET) do not allow head and body movements and thus the application of natural vestibular stimulation (VS). Consequently, human neuroimaging studies have used a variety of artificial VS devoid of physical head motion, such as cold and warm caloric VS, galvanic VS, auditory clicks, or short tone bursts (Lopez et al 2012).…”

“…These areas form a cortical network of which the core is presumed to be located in the "parieto-insular vestibular cortex" (PIVC; Guldin and Grüsser 1998). Recently, descriptions of vestibular neurons' spatiotemporal tuning in these cortical regions have been achieved during three-dimensional passive rotations/ translations on motion platforms in nonhuman primates (e.g., Chen et al 2011;Shinder and Newlands 2014;Takahashi et al 2007).…”

A Symmetric Approach Elucidates Multisensory Information Integration

“…New mechanisms, such as the "unimodal multisensory neurons" [17], have been demonstrated. In addition, multisensory interactions have been reported at system levels traditionally classified as strictly unimodal: both primary and secondary sensory areas receive substantial inputs from sources that carry information about events impacting other modalities [18][19][20][21][22]. In particular, it has been well established in the case of the human V1, which is inherently multisensory [23].…”