Cross-Modal Interaction and Integration Through Stimulus-Specific Adaptation in the Thalamic Reticular Nucleus of Rats
Yumei Gong1,2,3 • Yuying Zhai1 • Xinyu Du1 • Peirun Song1,2 • Haoxuan Xu1,2 • Qichen Zhang1,2 • Xiongjie Yu1,2,3
1 Department of Neurology of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Interdisciplinary Institute of Neuroscience and Technology, College of Biomedical Engineering and Instrument Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310029, China
2 Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Ministry of Education, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
3 Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Cardio-Cerebral Vascular Detection Technology and Medicinal Effectiveness Appraisal, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
Abstract
Stimulus-specific adaptation (SSA), defined as a decrease in responses to a common stimulus that only partially generalizes to other rare stimuli, is a widespread phenomenon in the brain that is believed to be related to novelty detection. Although cross-modal sensory processing is also a widespread phenomenon, the interaction between the two phenomena is not well understood. In this study, the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), which is regarded as a hub of the attentional system that contains multi-modal neurons, was investigated. The results showed that SSA existed in an interactive oddball stimulation, which mimics stimulation changes from one modality to another. In the bimodal integration, SSA to bimodal stimulation was stronger than to visual stimulation alone but similar to auditory stimulation alone, which indicated a limited integrative effect. Collectively, the present results provide evidence for independent cross-modal processing in bimodal TRN neurons.
Keywords
Stimulus-specific adaptation; Regularity; Novelty detection; Thalamic reticular nucleus; Crossmodal
