Non-acoustic events activate auditory cortex in monkeys performing an auditory discrimination

Michael Brosch, Leibniz-Institut für Neurobiologie

Abstract
Auditory cortex, similar to other sensory cortices, is generally considered to be unimodal, i.e., to
be involved in processing and representing various aspects of sound. Here we report on
extensive cross-modal activation in the auditory cortex of highly trained adult monkeys that was
observed while the monkeys performed a demanding auditory categorization task: after a cue-
light turns on monkeys could initiate a tone sequence by touching a bar and then earn a reward
by releasing the bar upon occurrence of a falling pitch direction in the tone sequence. In the
primary auditory cortex and posterior belt areas of these monkeys we found many neurons
whose firing was synchronized to the cue-light and to the touch and the release of the bar. This
suggests that auditory cortex can be active during visual and somatosensory stimulation as well
as before and during movements. Our findings corroborate and extend recent findings on multi-
modal activation in auditory cortex. We speculate that the multimodal corepresentation in
auditory cortex has arisen from the intensive practice of the subjects with the behavioral
procedure and that this corepresentation facilitates a subject's performance of audiomotor tasks.

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