TY - JOUR
T1 - Distinct auditory and visual tool regions with multisensory response properties in human parietal cortex
AU - Kassuba, Tanja
AU - Pinsk, Mark A.
AU - Kastner, Sabine
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation ( BCS1025149 and BCS1328270 to S. K.) and the National Institutes of Health ( MH64043 to S.K.). T.K. was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation . We thank Christelle Taillens for help with acquiring sound stimuli, and Ryan E.B. Mruczek for the visual stimuli and for discussions on the methods.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2020/12
Y1 - 2020/12
N2 - Left parietal cortex has been associated with the human-specific ability of sophisticated tool use. Yet, it is unclear how tool information is represented across senses. Here, we compared auditory and visual tool-specific activations within healthy human subjects to probe the relation of tool-specific networks, uni- and multisensory response properties, and functional and structural connectivity using functional and diffusion-weighted MRI. In each subject, we identified an auditory tool network with regions in left anterior inferior parietal cortex (aud-aIPL), bilateral posterior lateral sulcus, and left inferior precentral sulcus, and a visual tool network with regions in left aIPL (vis-aIPL) and bilateral inferior temporal gyrus. Aud-aIPL was largely separate and anterior/inferior from vis-aIPL, with varying degrees of overlap across subjects. Both regions displayed a strong preference for tools versus other stimuli presented within the same modality. Despite their modality preference, aud-aIPL and vis-aIPL and a region in left inferior precentral sulcus displayed multisensory response properties, as revealed in multivariate analyses. Thus, two largely separate tool networks are engaged by the visual and auditory modalities with nodes in parietal and prefrontal cortex potentially integrating information across senses. The diversification of tool processing in human parietal cortex underpins its critical role in complex object processing.
AB - Left parietal cortex has been associated with the human-specific ability of sophisticated tool use. Yet, it is unclear how tool information is represented across senses. Here, we compared auditory and visual tool-specific activations within healthy human subjects to probe the relation of tool-specific networks, uni- and multisensory response properties, and functional and structural connectivity using functional and diffusion-weighted MRI. In each subject, we identified an auditory tool network with regions in left anterior inferior parietal cortex (aud-aIPL), bilateral posterior lateral sulcus, and left inferior precentral sulcus, and a visual tool network with regions in left aIPL (vis-aIPL) and bilateral inferior temporal gyrus. Aud-aIPL was largely separate and anterior/inferior from vis-aIPL, with varying degrees of overlap across subjects. Both regions displayed a strong preference for tools versus other stimuli presented within the same modality. Despite their modality preference, aud-aIPL and vis-aIPL and a region in left inferior precentral sulcus displayed multisensory response properties, as revealed in multivariate analyses. Thus, two largely separate tool networks are engaged by the visual and auditory modalities with nodes in parietal and prefrontal cortex potentially integrating information across senses. The diversification of tool processing in human parietal cortex underpins its critical role in complex object processing.
KW - Anterior inferior parietal cortex
KW - Audio-visual
KW - Diffusion-weighted MRI
KW - Multisensory
KW - Tools
KW - fMRI
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U2 - 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2020.101889
DO - 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2020.101889
M3 - Article
C2 - 32707071
AN - SCOPUS:85088982718
SN - 0301-0082
VL - 195
JO - Progress in Neurobiology
JF - Progress in Neurobiology
M1 - 101889
ER -