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The Journal of Neuroscience, July 29, 2009, 29(30):9602-9613; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.6117-08.2009

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Auditory and Multisensory Responses in the Tectofugal Pathway of the Barn Owl

Amit Reches and Yoram Gutfreund

The Department of Physiology and Biophysics, The Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa 31096, Israel

Correspondence should be addressed to Y. Gutfreund, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, The Bruce Rappaport Medical School, Technion, Haifa, 31096, Israel. Email: yoramg{at}tx.technion.ac.il

A common visual pathway in all amniotes is the tectofugal pathway connecting the optic tectum with the forebrain. The tectofugal pathway has been suggested to be involved in tasks such as orienting and attention, tasks that may benefit from integrating information across senses. Nevertheless, previous research has characterized the tectofugal pathway as strictly visual. Here we recorded from two stations along the tectofugal pathway of the barn owl: the thalamic nucleus rotundus (nRt) and the forebrain entopallium (E). We report that neurons in E and nRt respond to auditory stimuli as well as to visual stimuli. Visual tuning to the horizontal position of the stimulus and auditory tuning to the corresponding spatial cue (interaural time difference) were generally broad, covering a large portion of the contralateral space. Responses to spatiotemporally coinciding multisensory stimuli were mostly enhanced above the responses to the single modality stimuli, whereas spatially misaligned stimuli were not. Results from inactivation experiments suggest that the auditory responses in E are of tectal origin. These findings support the notion that the tectofugal pathway is involved in multisensory processing. In addition, the findings suggest that the ascending auditory information to the forebrain is not as bottlenecked through the auditory thalamus as previously thought.

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Received Dec. 22, 2008; revised May 13, 2009; accepted June 20, 2009.

Correspondence should be addressed to Y. Gutfreund, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, The Bruce Rappaport Medical School, Technion, Haifa, 31096, Israel. Email: yoramg{at}tx.technion.ac.il

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