Shared Representation of Visual and Auditory Motion Directions in the Human Middle-Temporal Cortex

• DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.04.039
• Publication Date: 2020-05-21T14:40:30Z
• Authors: Mohamed Rezk; Stephanie Cattoir; Ceren Battal; Valeria Occelli; Stefania Mattioni; Olivier Collignon
• Keywords: Representation

The human occipito-temporal region hMT+/V5 is well known for processing visual motion direction. Here, we demonstrate that hMT+/V5 also represents the direction of auditory motion in a format partially aligned with the one used to code visual motion. We show that auditory and visual motion directions can be reliably decoded in individually localized hMT+/V5 and that motion directions in one modality can be predicted from the activity patterns elicited by the other modality. Despite shared motion-direction information across the senses, vision and audition, however, overall produce opposite voxel-wise responses in hMT+/V5. Our results reveal a multifaced representation of multisensory motion signals in hMT+/V5 and have broader implications for our understanding of how we consider the division of sensory labor between brain regions dedicated to a specific perceptual function.