PRIMER Multisensory Causal Inference in the Brain

At any given moment, our brain processes multiple inputs from its different sensory modali-ties (vision, hearing, touch, etc.). In deciphering this array of sensory information, the brain has to solve two problems: (1) which of the inputs originate from the same object and should be integrated and (2) for the sensations originating from the same object, how best to inte-grate them. Recent behavioural studies suggest that the human brain solves these prob-lems using optimal probabilistic inference, known as Bayesian causal inference. However, how and where the underlying computations are carried out in the brain have remained un-known. By combining neuroimaging-based decoding techniques and computational model-ling of behavioural data, a new study now sheds light on how multisensory causal inference maps onto specific brain areas. The results suggest that the complexity of neural computa-tions increases along the visual hierarchy and link specific components of the causal infer-ence process with specific visual and parietal regions