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对象是至关重要的， 有效地沟通，在我们复杂的世界中导航。而听觉和视觉信息 在人脑的许多部位结合在一起，额叶被认为是一个与 记忆和语言依赖于复杂的听觉和视觉刺激的多感觉整合。 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 和前额叶皮质的听觉处理，最近我们观察到神经元 对组合的脸部和语音刺激的反应表明在多模式感觉整合中可能起到作用。 这个项目的目标是对腹侧前额叶皮质的过程有一个基本的了解。 复杂的听觉、视觉和组合视听刺激，服务于有意义的交流和 物体识别。我们的实验将集中在神经生理学和解剖学分析上。 灵长类前额叶皮质腹侧。在Aim 1wE中，我们将描述以下内容的选择性、专一性和组织 面孔、发声和面声联合发声的前额叶单单位电生理反应 刺激物。我们的研究将同时使用静态(脸部图片)和动态(短片)自然刺激 与发声结合起来。在目标2中，我们将研究构成感觉的细胞机制。 跨模式记忆任务中的整合与学习过程中细胞的变化 此任务中的视听关联。最后，我们将阐明听觉背后的神经回路， 前额叶视觉和多模式反应的传入和传出联系 前额叶腹侧皮质的听觉、视觉和多通道区域。 由于我们的研究目的是确定认知的前额叶神经元机制 复杂的交流刺激及其整合，我们的发现将对理解 影响沟通、语言和感觉整合的神经障碍。这些障碍 包括精神分裂症和自闭症，其中前额叶皮质功能障碍已被描述。

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.