"neurons in the rostral superior temporal sulcus have bimodal or trimodal (visual, auditory, somatosensory) responses (Bruce et al 1981, Pandya & Barnes 1987)"
Article An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function
Hi Joelle !
The input sources of a neuron come from different brain areas, that may be processing different sensory-motor modalities. For example, neurons of parietal cortex are known to link visual and motor information.
The receptive field of a neuron is tuned among the input space of all its afferent connections, therefore it can be encompassing several modalities.
Regarding the specific case of the cortical network, several papers from Damasio use this multi-modal principle to build a theory about concept extraction and sensory cues retrieval. I also attach a paper where I describe this from a modelling point of view through the use of multi modal convergence maps. I can get some neuro from the references inside.
Article Multi-modal convergence maps: From body schema and self-repr...
I did not read the source, I simply mean to supply a general understanding why certain neurons are in principle selective to multimodal input.
Whether or not a neuron fires depends on the input from other neurons. In many areas, one of which is rSTS, we find what some people have called "connector hubs", neuronal populations that receive input from the different sensory modalities. This is likely to exist, otherwise we would not be able to relate distinct sensory properties of the same object or event to that object/event.
In any case, one answer to your, kind of general, question could be: a neuron can be selective to multimodal input, iff its input originates from these distinct modalities.
After all, an action potential only gets elicited when temporal and spatial summation of enough exitatory input reaches threshold. In a single neuron that is.
Sebastian, so you're saying that it basically sums up to the multimodal responding neuron simply receiving electrical signals from neurons that stem from different modalities, and that converge onto it or into the region where that neuron is found.
Exactly. I mean thats one way of looking at it. As always, you can probably get more and more specific the more you know. For example in many cases there will be interneurons that are selective to some unimodal signal first and from there on you can look at connections to neurons that are selective to a combination of multiple-modality-input.
Hi Joelle !
The input sources of a neuron come from different brain areas, that may be processing different sensory-motor modalities. For example, neurons of parietal cortex are known to link visual and motor information.
The receptive field of a neuron is tuned among the input space of all its afferent connections, therefore it can be encompassing several modalities.
Regarding the specific case of the cortical network, several papers from Damasio use this multi-modal principle to build a theory about concept extraction and sensory cues retrieval. I also attach a paper where I describe this from a modelling point of view through the use of multi modal convergence maps. I can get some neuro from the references inside.
Article Multi-modal convergence maps: From body schema and self-repr...
How does a neuron learn to respond? In infancy it is not so precise but later in life it becomes better and better.
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