Context-dependent signaling of coincident auditory and visual events in primary visual cortex
Abstract
Detecting rapid, coincident changes across sensory modalities is essential for recognition of sudden threats or events. Using two-photon calcium imaging in identified cell types in awake, head-fixed mice, we show that, among the basic features of a sound envelope, loud sound onsets are a dominant feature coded by the auditory cortex neurons projecting to primary visual cortex (V1). In V1, a small number of layer 1 interneurons gates this cross-modal information flow in a context-dependent manner. In dark conditions, auditory cortex inputs lead to suppression of the V1 population. However, when sound input coincides with a visual stimulus, visual responses are boosted in V1, most strongly after loud sound onsets. Thus, a dynamic, asymmetric circuit connecting AC and V1 contributes to the encoding of visual events that are coincident with sounds.
Data availability
Data and software availability. The data that support the findings of this study are freely available at https://www.bathellier-lab.org/downloads or at Dryad, doi:10.5061/dryad.82r5q83. Custom analysis scripts are available as a source code file.
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Data from: Context-dependent signaling of coincident auditory and visual events in primary visual cortexDryad Digital Repository, doi:10.5061/dryad.82r5q83.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (Retour Postdoc)
- Brice Bathellier
Human Frontier Science Program (CDA)
- Evan R Harrell
- Brice Bathellier
H2020 European Research Council (ERC CoG)
- Alexandre Kempf
- Sebastian Ceballo
- Anton Filipchuk
- Brice Bathellier
Seventh Framework Programme (Marie Curie CiG)
- Brice Bathellier
Fondation pour l'Audition (Lab grant)
- Evan R Harrell
- Brice Bathellier
École Doctorale Frontières du Vivant - Programme Bettencourt (Phd fellowship)
- Alexandre Kempf
Paris-Saclay University (NeuroSaclay Brainscopes)
- Brice Bathellier
Ecole des Neurosciences de Paris (Phd fellowship)
- Sebastian Ceballo
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All animal procedures were approved by the French Ethical Committee (authorization 00275.01).
Copyright
© 2019, Deneux et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Further reading
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