Anatomical Evidence of Multimodal Integration in Primate Striate Cortex

The primary visual cortex (area 17 or V1) is not thought to receive input from nonvisual extrastriate cortical areas. However, this has yet to be shown to be the case using sensitive tracers in the part of area 17 subserving the peripheral visual field. Here we show using retrograde tracers that peripheral area 17 subserving the visual field at an eccentricity of 10-20 degrees receives projections from the core and parabelt areas of the auditory cortex as well as from the polysensory area of the temporal lobe (STP). The relative strength of these projections was calculated for each injection by computing the proportions of retrogradely labeled neurons located in the auditory and STP areas with respect to number of labeled neurons constituting the established projection from the superior temporal sulci (STS) motion complex (middle temporal area, medial superior temporal, fundus of the superior temporal area). In peripheral area V1 the projection from auditory cortex corresponds to 9.5% of that of the STS motion complex and STP to 35% of that from the STS motion complex. Compared to peripheral area 17, central and paracentral area 17 showed considerably weaker inputs from auditory cortex (0.2-0.8%) but slightly more from STP cortex (3.5-6.1%). The present results show that the connectivity of area 17 is eccentricity dependent. Direct projections from auditory and STP cortex to peripheral area 17 have important consequences for higher visual functions of area 17, including multimodal integration at early stages of the visual cortical pathway.