Audiovisual Integration in the Prefrontal Cortex

社会交流在很大程度上依赖于感觉、情感和认知信息的整合 大脑区域的网络。虽然许多大脑区域整合了听觉和视觉信息，但额叶下部 脑叶(IFG)从多种形式接受丰富的感觉传入，对许多大脑产生影响 参与运动和认知过程的区域，在我们的言语和语言中起着重要作用 流程。灵长类前额叶腹外侧皮质(VLPFC)的研究进展 发现神经元对特定物种的面孔和发声有选择性的反应。 并对这些交流刺激进行复杂的整合。此外，VLPFC在以下方面也是必不可少的 跨模式工作记忆。VLPFC的这些不同功能存在于几个细胞构造区， 每一个都接受不同的解剖传入，表现出不同的感觉和认知 回应。无法整合面部和声音信息会损害语音处理、语言学习 识别和语义处理，VLPFC参与的社交交流的所有基本要素 在……里面。因此，确定VLPFC分区的综合和细胞功能将澄清 灵长类额叶及其在沟通障碍中的作用。在这份提案中，我们将确定 面部和声音信息的成分在VLPFC亚区和什么神经元中整合 机制是这些次区域一体化的基础。在目标1中，我们将调查人脸和 语音信息是否被整合以及VLPFC的亚区是否处理和整合这些刺激 不同的(即，在哪里集成了什么)。我们假设VLFPC的通道特定亚区将 对面部和声音刺激的光谱时间特征的处理表现出不同的反应。在目标2中， 我们将询问脸部和声音刺激是如何由单个神经元整合并同时跨越的 在呈现动态自然主义视听刺激的过程中录制的合奏。特别是，我们将 确定VLPFC神经元是否执行时分多路传输，其中神经对面孔发声的反应 电影显示了在面部或声音的神经表示之间来回切换的证据 一体化过程中的刺激。此外，我们还将对视听对中的面部和声音刺激进行降级处理 为了有选择地减少面部或声音刺激在整合过程中的作用，并确定 这如何影响我们对这些反应的时间模型。合并对以下问题的回答的合奏录音 用新的计算方法在东半球灵长类动物的前额叶皮质中进行自然主义刺激，将提供 关于我们如何结合社交信息的新的、有价值的数据。这与以下内容特别相关 了解自闭症谱系障碍等智力障碍患者感觉统合能力的变化。

Social communication depends on the integration of sensory, emotional and cognitive information by a large network of brain regions. While many brain regions integrate auditory and visual information, the inferior frontal lobes (IFG) receive a wealth of sensory afferents from multiple modalities, has influence over many brain regions involved in motor and cognitive processes, and plays a major role in our speech and language processes. Previous investigations in primate ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), a proposed homologue of human IFG, revealed that neurons are selectively responsive to species-specific faces and to vocalizations and perform complex integration of these communication stimuli. Furthermore, VLPFC is essential during crossmodal working memory. These varied functions of VLPFC occur over several cytoarchitectonic regions, each of which receives different anatomical afferents and demonstrates diverse sensory and cognitive responses. Inability to integrate face and vocal information impairs speech processing, language learning, recognition and semantic processing, all essential elements of social communication that VLPFC participates in. Hence, identifying the integrative and cellular functions of VLPFC subdivisions will clarify the organization of the primate frontal lobe and its role in disorders of communication. In this proposal, we will determine what components of face and vocal information are integrated within VLPFC subregions and what neural mechanism underlie integration in these subregions. In Aim 1, we will investigate which features of face and vocal information are integrated and whether subregions of VLPFC process and integrate these stimuli differently (i.e. What is integrated Where). We hypothesize that modality specific subregions of VLFPC will show differential responses to manipulations of spectrotemporal features of face and vocal stimuli. In Aim 2, we will interrogate how face and vocal stimuli are integrated by single neurons and across simultaneously recorded ensembles during the presentation of dynamic naturalistic audiovisual stimuli. In particular we will determine if VLPFC neurons perform time division multiplexing, where the neural response to face-vocalization movie shows evidence of “switching” back and forth between neural representations of the face or the vocal stimulus during integration. Furthermore we will degrade the face and vocal stimuli in an audiovisual pair in order to selectively diminish the contribution of the face or the vocal stimuli during integration and to determine how this affects our temporal model of these responses. Merging ensemble recordings of responses to naturalistic stimuli in the prefrontal cortex of Old World Primates with novel computational methods, will provide new and valuable data on how we combine social communication information. This is of particular relevance to understanding changes in sensory integration in intellectual disabilities such as autism spectrum disorders.