Interactions between multisensory integration and attention were studied using a combined audiovisual streaming design and a rapid serial visual presentation paradigm. Event-related potentials (ERPs) following audiovisual objects (AV) were compared with the sum of the ERPs following auditory (A) and visual objects (V). Integration processes were expressed as the difference between these AV and ...

Functional neuroimaging studies have implicated a number of brain regions, especially the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), as being potentially important for visual-tactile multisensory integration. However, neuroimaging studies are correlational and do not prove the necessity of a region for the behavioral improvements that are the hallmark of multisensory integration. To remedy this knowledge...

Most of current knowledge about the mechanisms of multisensory integration of environmental stimuli by the human brain derives from neuroimaging experiments. However, neuroimaging studies do not always provide conclusive evidence about the causal role of a given area for multisensory interactions, since these techniques can mainly derive correlations between brain activations and behavior. Conv...

Previous work has established that the spatial receptive fields (SRFs) of multisensory neurons in the cerebral cortex are strikingly heterogeneous, and that SRF architecture plays an important deterministic role in sensory responsiveness and multisensory integrative capacities. The initial part of this contribution serves to review these findings detailing the key features of SRF organization i...

It is well established that superior colliculus (SC) multisensory neurons integrate cues from different senses; however, the mechanisms responsible for producing multisensory responses are poorly understood. Previous studies have shown that spatially congruent cues from different modalities (e.g., auditory and visual) yield enhanced responses and that the greatest relative enhancements occur fo...

The function of secondary somatosensory (SII) cortex is poorly understood, but there is evidence to suggest that one of its roles may be in multisensory integration. This study used high-resolution field potential mapping coupled with laminar field potential and multiunit recording to examine the association between SII and multisensory (auditory-somatosensory) cortex in the rat. We demonstrate...

The purpose of this study was to analyze the results of a training method to increase voluntary recruitment of internal oblique and transversus abdominis muscles. Forty volunteers were assigned to either a Control or an Experimental Group. Training consisted of multisensory (auditory, tactile, visual, and kinesthetic) cuing focused on the lower abdominal muscles during the slow curl-back (eccen...

Multisensory interactions are observed in species from single-cell organisms to humans. Important early work was primarily carried out in the cat superior colliculus and a set of critical parameters for their occurrence were defined. Primary among these were temporal synchrony and spatial alignment of bisensory inputs. Here, we assessed whether spatial alignment was also a critical parameter fo...

Most events in the world are specified by information from multiple senses. To take advantage of this redundant and complementary sensory information, the brain has specialized circuits that integrate these cues in order to shape perception and guide behavior. Because of the importance of these processes, it should come as no surprise that the field of multisensory research is expanding at a ra...