Audiovisual spatial recalibration but not integration is shaped by early sensory experience

Patrick Bruns; Lux Li; Maria J S Guerreiro; Idris Shareef; Siddhart S Rajendran; Kabilan Pitchaimuthu; Ramesh Kekunnaya; Brigitte Röder

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104439

Audiovisual spatial recalibration but not integration is shaped by early sensory experience

iScience. 2022 May 23;25(6):104439. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104439. eCollection 2022 Jun 17.

Authors

Patrick Bruns¹, Lux Li^{1

2}, Maria J S Guerreiro^{1

3}, Idris Shareef⁴, Siddhart S Rajendran^{1

4}, Kabilan Pitchaimuthu^{1

4}, Ramesh Kekunnaya⁴, Brigitte Röder¹

Affiliations

¹ Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, University of Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany.
² Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, London, ON N6G 2M1, Canada.
³ Biological Psychology, Department of Psychology, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Oldenburg, 26111 Oldenburg, Germany.
⁴ Jasti V Ramanamma Children's Eye Care Centre, LV Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, Telangana 500034, India.

Abstract

To clarify the role of sensory experience during early development for adult multisensory learning capabilities, we probed audiovisual spatial processing in human individuals who had been born blind because of dense congenital cataracts (CCs) and who subsequently had received cataract removal surgery, some not before adolescence or adulthood. Their ability to integrate audio-visual input and to recalibrate multisensory spatial representations was compared to normally sighted control participants and individuals with a history of developmental (later onset) cataracts. Results in CC individuals revealed both normal multisensory integration in audiovisual trials (ventriloquism effect) and normal recalibration of unimodal auditory localization following audiovisual discrepant exposure (ventriloquism aftereffect) as observed in the control groups. In addition, only the CC group recalibrated unimodal visual localization after audiovisual exposure. Thus, in parallel to typical multisensory integration and learning, atypical crossmodal mechanisms coexisted in CC individuals, suggesting that multisensory recalibration capabilities are defined during a sensitive period in development.

Keywords: Cognitive neuroscience; Developmental neuroscience; Ophthalmology; Sensory neuroscience.