Functional specialisation of multisensory temporal integration in the mouse superior colliculus

Gaia Bianchini, Ines Razafindrahaba, Marcelo J. Moglie, George Konstantinou, Xavier Cano-Ferrer, Albane Imbert and M. Florencia Iacaruso ()
Additional contact information
Gaia Bianchini: The Francis Crick Institute
Ines Razafindrahaba: The Francis Crick Institute
Marcelo J. Moglie: The Francis Crick Institute
George Konstantinou: The Francis Crick Institute
Xavier Cano-Ferrer: The Francis Crick Institute
Albane Imbert: The Francis Crick Institute
M. Florencia Iacaruso: The Francis Crick Institute

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: Abstract Our perception of the world depends on the brain’s capacity to integrate information from multiple senses, with timing differences serving as crucial cues for binding or segregating cross-modal signals. The superior colliculus (SC) is a central hub for such integration, yet the contributions of its distinct regions remain poorly understood. Here we show, from recordings of over 5000 neurons in awake mice, that multisensory neurons reliably encode audiovisual delays through nonlinear integration of auditory and visual inputs. This nonlinearity enhances the precision of delay representation, with posterior-medial SC populations representing the peripheral sensory field showing superior temporal discriminability. Connectivity analyses reveal stronger coupling in the medial SC and function-specific recurrent networks, with multisensory neurons receiving about half of their local input from other multisensory neurons. Together, these results demonstrate how nonlinear integration, regional specialisation, and network architecture combine to support robust sensory binding and accurate encoding of temporal multisensory information.

Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64600-x Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-64600-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-64600-x

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().