Nervous Excitability dynamics in a multisensory syndrome and its similitude with a normal state. Scaling Laws

TL;DR

This paper reviews a cortical multisensory syndrome linked to brain lesions, highlighting its similarity to normal brain states through scaling laws, and explores how nervous excitability influences perception and cross-modal effects.

Contribution

It introduces a dynamic system model of multisensory perception based on allometric scaling laws and compares syndrome features with normal brain states.

Findings

Perception can be improved by stimulus intensification or cross-modal stimulation.

Nervous excitability deficits lead to scale-reduced brain functions.

Stevens' power law fits multisensory perception data in the syndrome.

Abstract

In the context of increased number of works published on multisensory and cross-modal effects, we review a cortical multisensory syndrome (called central syndrome) associated with a unilateral parieto-occipital lesion in a rather unspecific (or multisensory) zone of the cortex. The patients with this syndrome suffered from bilateral and symmetric multisensory disorders dependent on the extent of nervous mass lost and the intensity of the stimulus. They also presented cross-modal effects. A key point is the similitude of this syndrome with a normal state, since this syndrome would be the result of a scale reduction in brain excitability. The first qualities lost when the nervous excitation diminishes are the most complex ones, following allometric laws proper of a dynamic system. The inverted perception (visual, tactile, auditive) in this syndrome is compared to other cases of visual inversion reported in the literature. We focus on the capability of improving perception by intensifying the stimulus or by means of another type of stimulus (cross-modal), muscular effort being one of the most efficient and least known means. This capability is greater when nervous excitability deficit (lesion) is greater and when the primary stimulus is weaker. Thus, in a normal subject, this capability is much weaker although perceptible for functions with high excitability demand. We also review the proposed scheme of functional cortical gradients whereby the specificity of the cortex is distributed with a continuous variation leading to a brain dynamics model accounting for multisensory or cross-modal interactions. Perception data (including cross-modal effects) in this syndrome are fitted using Stevens' power law which we relate to the allometric scaling power laws dependent on the active neural mass, which seem to be the laws governing many biological neural networks.