Modeling visual and auditory integration of barn owl superior colliculus with STDP

The visual and auditory map alignment in the superior colliculus of barn owl is important for its accurate localization in prey behavior. This alignment may be disturbed by the blindness or prism wearing, the juvenile barn owl could adapt its auditory map to this mismatch after several weeks training. It is believed in literature that auditory map with the plasticity shifts in terms of the visual map change. In this paper, a model is built to explain this mechanism. The activity dependent axonogenesis during the auditory map shift is guided by the visual instructive spikes whereas the visual instructive spikes are modulated by an inhibitory network based on spike timing dependent plasticity(STDP). The simulation results are consistent with the biological experiment and would open a way towards artificial networks capable of eliminating the disparity in visual and auditory map integration.