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Information integration across different sensory modalities contributes to object recognition, the generation of associations and long-term memory representations. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging adaptation to investigate the presence of sensory integrative effects at cortical levels as early as nonprimary auditory and extrastriate visual cortices, which are implicated in intermediate stages of object processing. Stimulation consisted of an adapting audiovisual stimulus S(1) and a subsequent stimulus S(2) from the same basic-level category (e.g., cat). The stimuli were carefully balanced with respect to stimulus complexity and semantic congruency and presented in four experimental conditions: (1) the same image and vocalization for S(1) and S(2), (2) the same image and a different vocalization, (3) different images and the same vocalization, or (4) different images and vocalizations. This two-by-two factorial design allowed us to assess the contributions of auditory and visual stimulus repetitions and changes in a statistically orthogonal manner. Responses in visual regions of right fusiform gyrus and right lateral occipital cortex were reduced for repeated visual stimuli (repetition suppression). Surprisingly, left lateral occipital cortex showed stronger responses to repeated auditory stimuli (repetition enhancement). Similarly, auditory regions of interest of the right middle superior temporal gyrus and sulcus exhibited repetition suppression to auditory repetitions and repetition enhancement to visual repetitions. Our findings of crossmodal repetition-related effects in cortices of the respective other sensory modality add to the emerging view that in human subjects sensory integrative mechanisms operate on earlier cortical processing levels than previously assumed. more...

To date, noninvasive neuroimaging research on multisensory perception has focused on cortical activations. In a series of elegant functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments, Beauchamp and Ro recently investigated altered cortical activations associated with acquired sound-touch synesthesia resulting from a thalamic lesion. Their findings highlight the important role of intact thalamocortical projections for preventing illusory crossmodal perception and for underlying reliable multisensory integration. more...

Several regions in human temporal and frontal cortex are known to integrate visual and auditory object features. The processing of audio-visual (AV) associations in these regions has been found to be modulated by object familiarity. The aim of the present study was to explore training-induced plasticity in human cortical AV integration. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to analyze the neural correlates of AV integration for unfamiliar artificial object sounds and images in naïve subjects (PRE training) and after a behavioral training session in which subjects acquired associations between some of these sounds and images (POST-training). In the PRE-training session, unfamiliar artificial object sounds and images were mainly integrated in right inferior frontal cortex (IFC). The POST-training results showed extended integration-related IFC activations bilaterally, and a recruitment of additional regions in bilateral superior temporal gyrus/sulcus and intraparietal sulcus. Furthermore, training-induced differential response patterns to mismatching compared with matching (i.e., associated) artificial AV stimuli were most pronounced in left IFC. These effects were accompanied by complementary training-induced congruency effects in right posterior middle temporal gyrus and fusiform gyrus. Together, these findings demonstrate that short-term cross-modal association learning was sufficient to induce plastic changes of both AV integration of object stimuli and mechanisms of AV congruency processing. more...

The cortical integration of auditory and visual features is crucial for efficient object recognition. Previous studies have shown that audiovisual (AV) integration is affected by where and when auditory and visual features occur. However, because relatively little is known about the impact of what is integrated, we here investigated the impact of semantic congruency and object familiarity on the neural correlates of AV integration. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify regions involved in the integration of both (congruent and incongruent) familiar animal sounds and images and of arbitrary combinations of unfamiliar artificial sounds and object images. Unfamiliar object images and sounds were integrated in the inferior frontal cortex (IFC), possibly reflecting learning of novel AV associations. Integration of familiar, but semantically incongruent combinations also correlated with IFC activation and additionally involved the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). For highly familiar semantically congruent AV pairings, we again found AV integration effects in pSTS and additionally in superior temporal gyrus. These findings demonstrate that the neural correlates of object-related AV integration reflect both semantic congruency and familiarity of the integrated sounds and images. more...