[en] Do sensory cortices process more than one sensory modality? To answer these questions, scientists have generated a wide variety of studies at distinct space-time scales in different animal models, and often shown contradictory conclusions. Some conclude that this process occurs in early sensory cortices, but others that this occurs in areas central to sensory cortices. Here, we sought to determine whether sensory neurons process and encode physical stimulus properties of different modalities (tactile and acoustic). For this, we designed a bimodal detection task where the senses of touch and hearing compete from trial to trial. Two Rhesus monkeys performed this novel task, while neural activity was recorded in areas 3b and 1 of the primary somatosensory cortex (S1). We analyzed neurons' coding properties and variability, organizing them by their receptive field's position relative to the stimulation zone. Our results indicate that neurons of areas 3b and 1 are unimodal, encoding only the tactile modality in both the firing rate and variability. Moreover, we found that neurons in area 3b carried more information about the periodic stimulus structure than those in area 1, possessed lower response and coding latencies, and had a lower intrinsic time scale. In sum, these differences reveal a hidden processing-based hierarchy. Finally, using a powerful nonlinear dimensionality reduction algorithm, we show that the activity from areas 3b and 1 can be separated, establishing a clear division in the functionality of these two subareas of S1.
Disciplines :
Life sciences: Multidisciplinary, general & others
Author, co-author :
Parra Sánchez, Sergio ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'électricité, électronique et informatique (Institut Montefiore) > Brain-Inspired Computing ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Departamento de Neurociencia Cognitiva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 México City, Mexico
Díaz, Héctor; Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Departamento de Neurociencia Cognitiva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 México City, Mexico
Zainos, Antonio; Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Departamento de Neurociencia Cognitiva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 México City, Mexico
Alvarez, Manuel ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Departamento de Neurociencia Cognitiva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 México City, Mexico
Zizumbo, Jerónimo ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Departamento de Neurociencia Cognitiva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 México City, Mexico
Rivera-Yoshida, Natsuko ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Departamento de Neurociencia Cognitiva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 México City, Mexico
Pujalte, Sebastián; Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Departamento de Neurociencia Cognitiva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 México City, Mexico
Bayones, Lucas; Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Departamento de Neurociencia Cognitiva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 México City, Mexico
Romo, Ranulfo; Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Departamento de Neurociencia Cognitiva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 México City, Mexico ; Centro de Ciencias de la Complejidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México City 04510, Mexico ; El Colegio Nacional, Mexico City 06020, Mexico
Rossi-Pool, Román ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Departamento de Neurociencia Cognitiva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 México City, Mexico ; Centro de Ciencias de la Complejidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México City 04510, Mexico
Language :
English
Title :
Hierarchical unimodal processing within the primary somatosensory cortex during a bimodal detection task.
Publication date :
27 December 2022
Journal title :
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
UNAM - Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México CONACYT - Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología
Funding text :
Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología; and IBRO Early Career Award 2022 (to R.R.-P.) from International Brain Research Association. S. Parra (fellowship CONACYT-631990), H.D. and J.Z. are doctoral students from Programa de Doctorado en Ciencias Biomédicas, UNAM. L.B. is a postdoctoral student (Postdoctoral fellowship CONACYT-838783).ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank to José Vergara for her contribution during the experiments. We thank Gabriel Diaz-deLeon for his technical assistance. This work was supported by grants PAPIIT-IN205022 from the Dirección de Asuntos del Personal Académico de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (to R.R.-P.); CONACYT-319347 (to R.R.-P.) and CB2014-20140892 (to R.R.) from
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