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Neural and Behavioural Correlates of Audiovisual Gaze-Orienting in Common Marmosets

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 7, 2026, 3:00 – 5:00 pm PST, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballrooms

Tyler Cook¹, Maëva Gacoin², Justine Cléry³; ¹McGill University, ²Montreal Neurological Insitute and Hospital

Multisensory integration (MSI), the brains’ ability to combine multiple senses, is critical for perception; Disrupted MSI alters decision-making, illusion susceptibility, language learning and social development. I use the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) due to their behavioural and genetic homology with humans, sharing brain organization like humans, but little is known about marmoset MSI properties. I hypothesize that marmosets MSI of audiovisual signals is localized to the superior temporal sulcus (STS), superior colliculus (SC), and ventral intraparietal area (VIP), demonstrating superadditive responses, functional connectivity (FC), and blood oxygen level dependent activity (BOLD) to multisensory stimuli. I have collected behavioral and neuroimaging data in marmosets to examine MSI’s effect on signal detection, gaze-orienting, decision-making, BOLD, and FC related to MSI. Behavioural data is collected during in-cage touch-screen interaction using a custom testing platform. For imaging, I used a non-invasive MRI animal holder and custom coil built for marmoset imaging at 7T (Yazdanbakhsh et al., 2025). I recorded BOLD signal changes during a three-alternative spatial orienting task (n = 2). Subjects attended to audiovisual cues over noise while stimulus reliability, temporal synchrony, and spatial congruency were manipulated. In touch screen, subjects touch the location of the audiovisual cue after a short delay. Here, I demonstrate subject’s ability to autonomously train and test on audiovisual touch screen cognitive tasks. As well, preliminary imaging data demonstrates increased activation during multisensory conditions in the SC, STS, and VIP, supporting my hypotheses regarding localization of MSI function and aligning with previous rodent and macaque findings.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Multisensory