Research on the Mechanisms and/or Behavioral Outcome Measures of Multisensory Processing (R01)

Agency: NIH
Program: Research on the Mechanisms and/or Behavioral Outcomes of Multisensory Processing (R01)
Funding Opportunity Number: PA-15-347
Deadline: Standard NIH due dates for new grants – February 5th, June 5th and October 5th

Summary:
This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications focusing on the mechanisms and/or behavioral outcomes of multisensory processing, the integration or processing of at least two distinct types of sensory input as defined by distinct receptor-type transduction, neural pathways and cognate perceptual quality.   Specifically, multiple sensory inputs may include the major traditional modalities of hearing, vision, taste, smell, balance, and touch.  Additional submodalities of body senses include but are not restricted to thermosensation, body position and proprioception, pain, itch, and general visceral sensation.   This FOA encourages research grant applications investigating multisensory processing in perception or other behavioral and social outcomes and/or the mechanisms underlying multisensory processing in the context of the described specific areas of research interests from the participating ICOs. The FOA is intended to encourage basic, behavioral, and/or clinical research projects focused on two or more sensory modalities or research projects examining the interactions between other neural systems, such as cognitive, affective, or motor processes, and multiple sensory modalities.  Multisensory research applications that do not align with the specific areas of research interests described below by the participating NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs) should be submitted in response to the parent R01 FOA, PA-13-302.

Background:
We perceive the world through a variety of senses, including vision, audition, olfaction, gustation, somatosensation (cutaneous and subcutaneous tactile sense, thermosensation, proprioception, nociception, and visceral sensation), and vestibular sensation. In general, the senses are studied separately.  However, our experience of the world is mostly unitary; we do not perceive a barking dog as a visual stimulus, a sound, and perhaps a smell, but as a single multisensory object. Accordingly, mounting evidence indicates that the senses cannot be treated as independent channels. That is, perceptions in one modality can be enhanced, attenuated, or completely changed by sensory input from another modality. For example, touch can improve judgments of visual colors, even though touch itself cannot convey color, and vision can alter taste. Furthermore, multisensory processing can influence subsequent unimodal sensory processing (e.g., exposure to simultaneous auditory and visual stimuli can recalibrate the way that each of these stimuli is processed in the future, even in isolation), and can have synergistic effects on neural processing in cognitive, affective, motivational, or motor systems. In addition, there are enormous individual and lifespan differences in sensory processes across different senses, as well as other factors that could contribute to systematically differing perceptions of cross-modal stimuli. For example, research has uncovered a remarkable span of individual differences in gustation (e.g., supertasters), which may make the multisensory perception of flavor vastly different across individuals.

Sensory processes are relevant to a wide variety of health impacts, including neurological, mental and emotional health; consumption (e.g., food and alcohol intake, smoking); basic daily functions (e.g., walking, reaching/grasping); lifestyle activities (e.g., exercise, navigation, dancing, art activities, driving); communication and interpersonal transactions; medical diagnosis, and healthcare utilization. Understanding the scope and the limits of multisensory perception also informs the therapeutic space for sensory substitution in primary sense deficits (e.g. Braille reading for the blind) and temporary sensory alterations caused by disease or treatments for disease.  Thus, the interplay among multiple sensory modalities also has important implications for neural, cognitive, behavioral and social science research and for subsequent health outcomes.

Despite growing interest in how individuals integrate these ubiquitous signals, the mechanisms by which different sensory systems are integrated, interact with each other, or influence the processing of the connected neural systems in the brain remain largely unknown.  The roles of biochemical and physiological changes, genetics and epigenetics, psychological experiences, or physical environments in regulating multisensory processing are mostly unexplored.  Furthermore, the impact of multisensory processing on behavior continues to be understudied.

In 2012, the NIH Basic Behavioral & Social Sciences Research Opportunity Network (OppNet, http://oppnet.nih.gov) sponsored an FOA on Basic Behavioral Research on Multisensory Processing (R21; RFA-EY-13-001), which supported 10 exploratory grants.  The current FOA intends to expand on this previous initiative by encouraging studies of the neural circuitry and mechanisms of multisensory processing, in the context of relevant diseases and disorders of the nervous system, or in relevance to social behaviors, clinical diagnostics, or therapies.

Applications to this FOA will be assigned to an appropriate NIH IC according to research priorities of the participating ICs.  Relevant assignment factors include primary sense(s) under study, and research impacts within IC funding priorities (see participating IC "Specific Areas of Research Interest" below).

Scope:
This FOA supports innovative studies using animal or human subjects to examine two or more senses (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, somatosensory including pain or other submodalities of body senses, and vestibular) for the elucidation of mechanisms and behavioral outcomes of multisensory processing.  Therefore, applications submitted to this FOA should focus on mechanisms, or the behavioral impact, or both.   The initiative encourages the use of diverse methodologies, including basic biochemical, molecular, cellular, genetic approaches, neuroimaging and neurophysiological analyses, experimental psychophysics, “real world” settings, immersive virtual technology, and animal models.

For this FOA, applicants should address multisensory integration across at least two of the broadly different senses (smell, sight, taste, touch, hearing, balance) or the submodalities of body senses including but not restricted to thermosensation, body position and proprioception, pain, itch, and general visceral sensation.   Audio-visual, visual-vestibular and chemo-tactile integration already have been noted as examples.  However, the perception of form by integrating color contrast with shape-from-shading would be considered visual, and integration of linear with angular acceleration would be considered vestibular, and not appropriate here.  This FOA also supports research on the interaction of pain (as part of the somatosensation) with other sensory systems.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the Scientific/Research Contacts from various NIH ICs listed in Section VII prior to submission to discuss IC program relevance.

See the full announcement for specific IC interests.

Basic Behavioral Research on Multisensory Processing

Agency: NIH

Deadline: October 31, 2012

Summary:

Scope and Specific Requirements

Applications submitted in response to this FOA are expected to propose projects that will further our understanding of how multisensory input influences basic perceptual and behavioral processes. Successful applications will examine two or more senses (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, non-pain somatosensory, vestibular). This FOA encourages innovative studies that examine the influence of interactions among multisensory inputs on perception and behavior, or identify individual and lifespan differences in and moderators of multisensory perception and basic behavioral outcomes. The initiative encourages the use of diverse methodologies, including experimental psychophysics, “real world” settings, immersive virtual technology, and animal models.

This initiative will target projects that examine how causal interplay among the senses influences integrated perceptual behavior, rather than projects that aim to understand neural circuits and activity within the human brain itself (which are targeted in existing investments such as the Human Connectome Project within the Neuroscience Blueprint). Basic behavioral multisensory science projects will be considered if the primary questions and outcomes of the research emphasize perception or behavior. Projects will be deemed non-responsive if the primary thrusts of the questions and outcomes are limited to neural circuits or neural mechanisms that underlie behavioral responses to sensory input. Neurobiological approaches may be included if they will augment our knowledge of multisensory influences on perceptual or behavioral outcomes.

Applications for research focused on the perception of pain or applied research are outside the scope of this FOA and will be deemed non-responsive. Pain-related research is targeted in existing investments such as the NIH Pain Consortium and the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research Grand Challenge on Pain. As defined by NIH, applied research in the behavioral and social sciences is designed to predict or influence health outcomes, risks, or protective factors. It is also concerned with the impact of illness or risk for illness on behavioral or social functioning. Applied research on multisensory processing as it relates to specific diseases, health conditions, intervention, or treatment outcomes will be deemed non-responsive.

Applications submitted under this mechanism should break new ground or extend previous discoveries toward new directions or applications. These studies may involve considerable scientific risk but may lead to a breakthrough in a particular area, or to the development of novel techniques, methodologies, models, or applications that could have a major impact on basic behavioral and/or social sciences research.  By using the R21 mechanism, the NIH seeks to foster the introduction of novel scientific ideas, model systems, tools, targets, and technologies that have the potential to substantially advance bBSSR.

Specific Areas of Research Interest

Below are examples of projects that would examine how multisensory input influences perception and behavior. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but only to provide examples of appropriate topics. For feedback on specific topics, please consult the program staff listed in the program announcement.

• In what ways are perceptions affected by multisensory input? What is the role of cognitive and/or affective processing in multisensory integration (i.e., bottom-up/top-down processing)?
• How do affective experiences or other psychological and volitional states modify the ways in which multisensory input are integrated with cognitive expectations to produce perceptions?
• What is the role of multiple sensory system integration in dynamic activities such as navigation (where multi-sensory and sensorimotor processing change sensory input, and vice versa) or social interactions/communication (where sensorimotor feedback loops affect the perceptions of the sender and receiver in a communication encounter)?
• Can individual differences of normal multisensory integration be identified? Are there physical features (in sensory organs), biomarkers (genetic or non-genetic), or brain features (e.g., structural differences/ activation patterns) that underlie these variations?
• Are there developmental differences in multisensory mechanisms and influence on perception and behavior across the lifespan?

Because this FOA targets basic behavioral and social science research approaches to understanding the influence of multisensory integration on perception and behavior, examples of research projects that will NOT be considered responsive to the FOA include, but are not limited to:

• Research examining only one sensory modality
• Research on pain
• Research with the primary or singular objective of identifying neural circuits or neural mechanisms that underlie behavioral responses to sensory input.
• Studies with a primary focus on prospective or descriptive epidemiology (e.g., observational studies with no focus on understanding underlying mechanistic processes).
• Descriptive research documenting individual or group differences without investigating the mechanisms and processes explaining these differences
• Clinical interventions or treatment studies, effectiveness trial, or implementation/ dissemination of interventions
• Research designed to predict or influence health outcomes, risks, or protective factors
• Research concerned with the impact of illness or risk for illness on behavioral or social functioning

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