THE ROLE OF THE MEDIAL PREFRONTAL CORTEX IN TEMPORAL MULTISENSORY INTEGRATION DEFICITS IN MOUSE MODELS OF AUTISM

We are constantly bombarded by information from different sensory modalities that must be integrated or segregated to guide behavior. Multisensory integration—the combination of cues from different modalities into a coherent percept—depends in part on the temporal binding window, the interval during which cross-modal cues originating from the same event are most likely to be integrated. Studies suggest that temporal multisensory integration is less precise in autism, potentially reflecting a broader temporal binding window, such that asynchronous sensory events are more likely to be perceived as synchronous. To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying atypical temporal multisensory integration in autism, we utilize the Fmr1 knockout (Fmr1-KO) and Shank3 (Shank3Δex4–22) genetic mouse models of autism, focusing on the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a candidate hub for multisensory processing and decision making. We quantify mPFC network activity at cellular resolution evoked by auditory, tactile, and combined audio–tactile stimulation presented synchronously or asynchronously using in vivo two-photon calcium imaging in awake, head-fixed naïve adult mice. We assess (i) the prevalence, reliability, and temporal precision of sensory-evoked responses across neuronal populations and (ii) whether combined stimulation produces evidence of multisensory gain. Ongoing analyses aim to determine whether multisensory integration in autism is characterized by increased temporal jitter and reduced reliability of sensory-evoked responses in the mPFC, leading to weaker and less consistent multisensory representations and reduced multisensory gain during passive stimulation.