Selective Attention Gates the Interactive Crossmodal Coupling between Perceptual Systems

Sensory cortical systems often activate in parallel, even when stimulation is experienced through a single sensory modality [1–3]. Co-activations may reflect the interactive coupling between information-linked cortical systems or merely parallel but independent sensory processing. We report causal evidence consistent with the hypothesis that human somatosensory cortex (S1), which co-activates with auditory cortex during the processing of vibrations and textures [4–9], interactively couples to cortical systems that support auditory perception. In a series of behavioral experiments, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to probe interactions between the somatosensory and auditory perceptual systems as we manipulated attention state. Acute TMS over S1 impairs auditory frequency perception when subjects simultaneously attend to auditory and tactile frequency, but not when attention is directed to audition alone. Auditory frequency perception is unaffected by TMS over visual cortex, thus confirming the privileged interactions between the somatosensory and auditory systems in temporal frequency processing [10–13]. Our results provide a key demonstration that selective attention can modulate the functional properties of cortical systems thought to support specific sensory modalities. The gating of crossmodal coupling by selective attention may critically support multisensory interactions and feature-specific perception. •Co-activation of sensory brain regions may reflect interactive functional coupling•Magnetic stimulation targeting somatosensory cortex selectively impairs audition•Site-specific TMS effects depend on modality- and feature-based attention•Selective attention appears to gate crossmodal coupling between sensory systems Co-activation of cortical systems may reflect interactive network coupling. Convento et al. show that transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) targeting somatosensory cortex selectively impairs auditory perception depending on modality- and feature-based attention. Selective attention appears to gate crossmodal coupling between sensory systems.