Sensory modality-specific spatio-temporal dynamics in response to counting tasks

Abstract

From perception to behavior, the human brain processes information in a flexible and abstract manner independent of an input sensory modality. However, the mechanism of such multisensory neural information processing in the brain remains under debate. Relatedly, studies often aim to investigate whether certain brain regions behave in a modality-specific manner or invariantly. Previous studies regarding multisensory information processing have commonly reported only on the activation of brain regions in response to unimodal or multimodal sensory stimuli. However, less attention has been given to the modality effect on the dynamics of such regions, which could advance our understanding of neuronal information processing. In this study, we investigated whether brain regions show modality-specific or invariant high-temporal dynamics. Electrocardiogram (EEG) was recorded from healthy, normal subjects during beep-, flash- and click-counting tasks, which corresponded to auditory, visual and tactile modalities, respectively. EEG dynamics regarding event-related spectral perturbations (ERSP) in ICA time-series data were compared across the sensory modalities using a multivariate pattern analysis. We found modality-specific EEG dynamics in the prefrontal cortex, whereas we found modality-specific and cross-modal dynamics in the early visual cortex.