Fig. 11.

Receptive field size is an excellent predictor of the capacity for multisensory integration. The probability of adult-like multisensory integration in individual neonatal SC neurons is plotted as a function of receptive field size for each of the three modalities. Adult data (black bars) are shown for comparison. Note the high probability of integration for neonatal neurons with adult-size receptive fields and the precipitous decline in integrative probability for neurons with receptive field sizes >150% of the adult mean. Because receptive field size varies as a function of position in the SC (rostral receptive fields are smaller than caudal receptive fields), for the purposes of this analysis the SC was divided into four anterior–posterior zones. In this way, the receptive field size of a neonatal neuron was calculated as a percentage of the mean adult receptive field size within the same anterior–posterior zone.Numbers in parentheses show number of neurons in each category.