Sensory modalities

…has been largely assumed that if the sensory loss is visual, then the rehabilitation focus should also be primarily visual. However, the other senses play a key role in visual rehabilitation due t

Sensory information is first processed by various thalamic nuclei before reaching the pallium in amniotes, where it is used for higher-order computations such as integrating diverse sensory information that can be utilized to form associations. In teleost fish, the dorsal thalamic nuclei, believed to be analogous to the amniote thalamus, projects primarily to the subpallium. However, the major diencephalic input to the pallium originates from the preglomerular nucleus (PG), suggesting that it may perform analogous functions to the amniote thalamocortical pathway. To examine this, we first mapp

In everyday life, the brain integrates information from different sensory modalities to form a coherent perception of the surrounding environment. This process, known as multisensory integration, enhances the brain’s response to redundant congruent sensory cues and emerges gradually during the developmental period, based on our experience with cross-modal stimuli. Consequently, integrative abilities develop in an altered form in individuals subjected to atypical multisensory experiences during the developmental period, such as those on the autistic spectrum. However, to interact with and corre

…cortical layers to compute specific sensory modalities. But how can astrocyte help to set the sensibility of neurons in a modality-specific manner? By using in vivo electrophysiology and sensory experiments in fosTRAP2 mice, we show that disruption of cortical astrocyte activity impairs the transfer of information across the feed

…visual inputs to map space, but other sensory modalities, such as odour, can also be effectively used (doi: 10.1093/cercor/bht239). Although rodents are nocturnal and short-sighted, little is known about the role of other sensory modalities as substrates for place fields. Here, we recorded electrophysiologically from place cells in the hippocampal CA1 region of adult male rats while they explored a round empty field arena in darkness and in the absence of reliable tactile, olfactory, and visual cues. We compared place cell behaviour un

Sensory information is first processed by various thalamic nuclei before reaching the pallium in amniotes where it is used for higher-order computations such as encoding new memories. In teleost fish, the dorsal thalamic nuclei, believed to be analogous to the amniote thalamus, projects primarily to the subpallium. However, the major diencephalic input to the pallium originates from the preglomerular nucleus (PG), suggesting that it may perform analogous functions to the amniote thalamocortical pathway. To examine this, we first mapped the anatomical inputs to the zebrafish PG and showed that

Information about an animal's surroundings reaches the brain through multiple sensory modalities. Multimodal information is integrated at multiple stages, including subcortically, and in primary-sensory and higher-order cortical areas. A basic and functionally important feature of multisensory convergence is its topography. For example, in the superior colliculus, visual, auditory, and tactile information converge in register, producing a two-dimensional map that drives saccades. Many studies have demonstrated multimodal convergence elsewhere in the brain, but beyond the superior colliculus, t

Natural language is strongly context-dependent and can be perceived through different sensory modalities. For example, humans can easily comprehend the meaning of complex narratives presented through auditory speech, written text, or visual images. To understand how complex language-related information is represented in the human brain there is a necessity to map the different linguistic and non-linguistic information perceived under different modalities across the cerebral cortex. To map this information to the brain, I suggest following a naturalistic approach and observing the human brain p

What is perception? Our sensory modalities transmit information about the external world into electrochemical signals that somehow give rise to our conscious experience of our environment. Normally there is too much information to be processed in any given moment, and the mechanisms of attention focus the limited resources of the mind to some information at the expense of others. My research has advanced from first examining visual perception and attention to now examine how multisensory processing contributes to perception and cognition. There are fundamental constraints on how much informati