Compensatory Plasticity in the Lateral Extrastriate Visual Cortex Preserves Audiovisual Temporal Processing following Adult-Onset Hearing Loss

Figure 5

Noise-induced hearing loss enhanced the audiovisual-evoked AVREC amplitudes at select SOAs within the multisensory zone of the V2L cortex. (a) AVREC waveforms in response to audiovisual stimuli presented at SOAs of 0, 10, 30, and 50 ms (from left to right) for noise-exposed rats (blue; ) and age-matched controls (light grey; ). The horizontal black and grey bars denote the presentation of the visual and auditory stimuli, respectively. (b) Audiovisual-evoked AVREC amplitudes were significantly increased in the noise-exposed rats when the timing between the stimuli was less than 30 ms. (c) AVREC peak latency showed differential effects between the groups, which were dependent on the SOA. In comparison to the controls, the noise-exposed rats showed a significant increase in peak latency at SOAs less than 20 ms, whereas they showed a significant decrease in peak latency at SOAs greater than 30 ms. Values are displayed as for the noise-exposed () and control () groups. and .

(a) AVREC waveforms

(b) AVREC peak amplitude

(c) AVREC peak latency