FLEXIBLE INTEGRATION OF VISUAL AND AUDITORY CUES DURING VISUOMOTOR LEARNING IN GERBILS

Animals integrate sensory information from multiple modalities to guide adaptive motor behaviors in dynamic environments. While the use of visual and auditory cues for spatial navigation is well documented, the underlying neural mechanisms supporting visuomotor learning and their vulnerability to sensory loss remain poorly understood. We hypothesize that visually guided distance estimation relies on distributed brain circuits that flexibly incorporate visual and auditory information, and that the integration or loss of auditory signals alters both behavior and neural activation patterns during visuospatial tasks. To test this, Mongolian gerbils were trained on an ethologically relevant jumping task requiring distance estimation using visual and/or auditory cues. Spontaneous vocalizations were recorded during solo task performance and in the presence of a conspecific to assess the influence of social context on behavior. In separate sessions, exogenous auditory cues were presented to determine how contextual auditory signals influence jumping behavior and cue weighting. This work also combines these behavioral assays with electrophysiological recordings in the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), which is known to play a role in spatial and contextual visual processing; however, its role in integrating visual and auditory information to guide spatial navigation remains unclear. Preliminary observations indicate that social context modulates vocalization rates and that exogenous auditory cues can shift distance estimation behavior, suggesting flexible cue integration strategies. Animals showed robust reliance on retinal image size as a visual depth cue, while auditory contextual cues produced only modest shifts in visuomotor behavior. These results highlight the dominant role of vision in distance estimation while pointing to a limited but measurable contribution of auditory context. This work advances understanding of how sensory systems coordinate with motor circuits for spatial navigation. The findings have implications for understanding how the brain flexibly combines sensory and social information to guide adaptive motor behaviors, and provide a behavioral foundation for future investigations into the neural mechanisms underlying multisensory integration in the posterior parietal cortex.