Neuroscientific evidence for multisensory convergence and interaction

Abstract

Effective behaviors optimized for various situations are enabled by various sensory information. How does the brain deal simultaneously with information from different sensory systems? Investigation of multisensory processing began from neuroanatomical and neurophys-iological studies at the level of single neurons. Accumulation of knowledge concerning neurons and progress in recording techniques of human brain activity have led to a massive expansion in recent neuroscientific studies using various combinations of brain activity recording and cognitive tasks. In this paper, we briefly review recent neuroscientific studies related to multi-sensory convergence and interaction, focusing on electrophysiological and imaging studies in humans.