Ghazanfar, A. A., & Schroeder, C. E. (2006). Is neocortex essentially multisensory? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10(6), 278–285. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2006.04.008
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Ghazanfar & Schroeder (2006)
Core argument: Neocortex is pervasively multisensory. Multisensory interactions occur not only in classical association areas but also in regions traditionally considered unimodal (e.g., auditory cortex receiving visual and somatosensory input, visual cortex responding to auditory stimuli).
Definition of multisensory: A region or neuron is multisensory if it responds to stimuli from more than one sensory modality. This is distinct from crossmodal (one modality influencing another) and supramodal (modality-independent functional organization).
Key regions reviewed:
- Superior temporal sulcus (STS): 36–38% of neurons multimodal for auditory + visual in anterior STS
- Intraparietal sulcus / LIP / VIP: visual + auditory + somatosensory responses; spatial tuning across modalities
- Frontal/premotor cortex: neurons in ventrolateral PFC integrate auditory and visual components of vocalizations (Romanski data); premotor “polysensory zone” responds to visual, auditory and somatosensory inputs
- Auditory cortex (A1, belt areas): receives visual and somatosensory input; interactions strongest for congruent stimuli
- Visual cortex (V1/V2): auditory stimuli activate extrastriate visual areas and even IT cortex
Relevance to thesis:
- Use to define and then rule out the multimodal interpretation of FEF/IFJa: these hubs being multisensory would mean they simply respond to both vision and audition in parallel — not that they impose the same organizational principle across modalities
- The PFC section (p. 279) directly supports why prefrontal areas were expected to show multisensory responses, making the supramodal finding a stronger claim
- Cite at first mention of “multimodal” in 5.1.4
see also
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Created: 2026-05-01