Tactile stimulation accelerates behavioral responses to visual stimuli through enhancement of occipital gamma-band activity

Vision Res. 2009 May;49(9):931-42. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2009.03.014. Epub 2009 Mar 24.

Abstract

We investigated how responses of occipital cortex to visual stimuli are modulated by simultaneously presented tactile stimuli. Magnetoencephalography was recorded while subjects performed a simple reaction time task. Presence of a task-irrelevant tactile stimulus leads to faster behavioral responses and earlier and stronger gamma-band synchronization in occipital cortex, irrespective of the relative location of the tactile stimulus. While also other stimulus related responses in occipital cortex were modulated (alpha-band and evoked responses in parieto-occipital region), correlation-analysis revealed induced gamma-band activity to be the best predictor of the faster behavioral response latencies, suggesting a key-role of oscillatory activity for cross-modal integration.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Biological Clocks / physiology
  • Brain Mapping / methods
  • Evoked Potentials / physiology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Magnetoencephalography / methods
  • Male
  • Occipital Lobe / physiology*
  • Pattern Recognition, Visual / physiology*
  • Photic Stimulation / methods
  • Physical Stimulation / methods
  • Psychomotor Performance / physiology*
  • Reaction Time / physiology
  • Touch Perception / physiology*
  • Visual Cortex / physiology
  • Young Adult