Auditory and Integrative Processes in Prefrontal Cortex

听觉和视觉刺激的整合对于通过视觉和声音识别物体至关重要， 有效沟通，并在我们复杂的世界中导航。当听觉和视觉信息 在人脑的许多部位都有结合，额叶被认为是与大脑皮层相关的区域。 与记忆和语言，这取决于复杂的听觉和视觉刺激的多感官整合。 以前对非人类灵长类动物的研究揭示了视觉的并列和重叠区域， 和听觉处理，最近我们观察到， 对组合的面部和voca刺激作出反应，表明在多模态感觉整合中可能起作用。 本项目的目标是获得腹侧前额叶皮层如何处理的基本理解 复杂的听觉、视觉和视听组合刺激，为有意义的交流服务， 物体识别我们的实验将集中在神经生理学和解剖学分析的 灵长类动物腹侧前额叶皮层在目标1中，我们将描述的选择性，特异性和组织， 面孔、发声和面孔-发声复合刺激的前额叶单单位电生理反应 刺激。我们的研究将同时利用静态（面部图片）和动态（短片）的自然刺激 结合发声。在目标2中，我们将研究感觉神经系统的细胞机制。 整合在跨模态记忆任务和细胞的变化，发生在学习过程中， 在这项任务中的视听联想。最后，我们将阐明听觉， 通过确定额叶的传入和传出连接， 听觉、视觉和多模式区域的腹侧前额叶皮层。 由于我们的研究旨在确定前额叶神经元的机制， 复杂的交流刺激及其整合，我们的研究结果将对理解 影响交流、语言和感觉统合的神经系统疾病。这些疾病 包括精神分裂症和孤独症，其中已经描述了前额叶皮质功能障碍。

The integration of auditory and visual stimuli is crucial for recognizing objects by sight and sound, communicating effectively, and navigating through our complex world. While auditory and visual information are combined in many sites of the human brain, the frontal lobes have been identified as a region associated with memory and language, which depend on multisensory integration of complex auditory and visual stimuli. Previous studies in non-human primates have revealed revealed juxtaposed and overlapping areas of visual and auditory processing in the ventral prefrontal cortex, and recently we have observed neurons that respond to combined face and voca stimuli indicating a possible role in multimodal sensory integration.The goal of this project is to obtain a fundamental understanding of how the ventral prefrontal cortexprocesses complex auditory, visual and combined audio-visual stimuli which serve meaningful communication and object recognition. Our experiments will focus on the neurophysiological and anatomical analysis of the primate ventral prefrontal cortex. InAim 1we will characterize the selectivity, specificity and organization of prefrontal single unit electrophysiological responses to face, vocalization and combined face-vocalization stimuli. Our studies will utilize both static (picture of face)and dynamic (short movie) natural stimuli combined with vocalizations. In Aim 2 we will examine the cellular mechanisms which underlie sensory integration in a cross-modal memory task and the cellular changes which take place during the learning of audio-visual associations in this task. Finally, we will elucidate the neuronal circuitry underlying auditory, visual and multimodal responses in the frontal lobes by determining the afferent and efferent connectionsof auditory, visual and multimodal regions of the ventral prefrontal cortex. Since our studies are aimed at determining the prefrontal neuronal mechanisms underlying the perception of complex communication stimuli and their integration, our findings will have implications for understanding neurological disorders which affect communication, language and sensory integration. These disorders include schizophrenia and autism in which disturbance of prefrontal cortical function has been described.