The temporal dynamics of audiovisual integration and decision making

Integration of information from multiple sensory modalities is necessary for the brain to create a unified percept of the world. We developed a novel paradigm to uncover how multisensory integration contributes to decision making in humans and mice. Specifically, we designed a task which allows us to quantify the contribution of visual and auditory stimulus variations across time.

Participants (humans/mice) were trained to make a unisensory (visual or auditory) or a multisensory (audiovisual) decision. We present participants with visual and/or auditory stimuli that fluctuated in contrast or volume, respectively. These fluctuations allow us to identify the time period that humans and mice accumulate unisensory versus multisensory evidence. Preliminary results indicate that mice base their decisions on the first 50 ms of auditory evidence during both auditory and audiovisual trials while the moment to moment visual fluctuations barely contribute to the decision making process.

During this internship you will help acquire more behavioral data to confirm/reject these results and help record single unit activity and local field potentials recorded in the primary visual cortex of task performing mice. We will correlate this neural activity with fluctuations of the

stimuli and the behavioral outcome to identify neural responses during feedforward visual processing, cross modal and multimodal processing and feedback responses reflecting the decision of an animal.

Your tasks:

– Train mice on behavioural paradigm

– Data analysis behavioural data

– Assist during electrophysiological recordings

– Data analysis electrophysiological data

– Assist during surgeries

If you would like to apply please send a

– Short motivation

– CV (include any details and experience on computer programming)

– Course and gradelists from your studies up until the moment of

application.