Multisensory plasticity in adulthood: cross-modal experience enhances neuronal excitability and exposes silent inputs

作者：Yu Liping; Rowland Benjamin A; Xu Jinghong; Stein Barry E^*

来源：Journal of Neurophysiology, 2013, 109(2): 464-474.

DOI：10.1152/jn.00739.2012

• visual
• auditory
• multisensory integration
• plasticity
• sensory exposure

Yu L, Rowland BA, Xu J, Stein BE. Multisensory plasticity in adulthood: cross-modal experience enhances neuronal excitability and exposes silent inputs. J Neurophysiol 109: 464-474, 2013. First published October 31, 2012; doi:10.1152/jn.00739.2012.-Multisensory superior colliculus neurons in cats were found to retain substantial plasticity to short-term, site-specific experience with cross-modal stimuli well into adulthood. Following cross-modal exposure trials, these neurons substantially increased their sensitivity to the cross-modal stimulus configuration as well as to its individual component stimuli. In many cases, the exposure experience also revealed a previously ineffective or %26quot;silent%26quot; input channel, rendering it overtly responsive. These experience-induced changes required relatively few exposure trials and could be retained for more than 1 h. However, their induction was generally restricted to experience with cross-modal stimuli. Only rarely were they induced by exposure to a modality-specific stimulus and were never induced by stimulating a previously ineffective input channel. This short-term plasticity likely provides substantial benefits to the organism in dealing with ongoing and sequential events that take place at a given location in space and may reflect the ability of multisensory superior colliculus neurons to rapidly alter their response properties to accommodate to changes in environmental challenges and event probabilities.

• 出版日期2013-1