# Population Neural Activity Mediating Sensory Perception Across Modalities

> **NIH NIH R01** · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $94,853

## Abstract

The parent grant was awarded as a BRAIN Initiative award via RFA-NS-18-009.
This is an application for NIH BRAIN Initiative Administrative Supplement to enhance diversity.
Mentor and Principal Investigator: Mala Murthy, PhD Candidate: Edna Normand, MD/PhD Candidate
Project Summary (from Parent Grant):
Natural sensory inputs are typically complex, and often combine multiple modalities. Human speech, for
example, combines auditory signals with visual cues, such as facial expressions, that inform the interpretation
of the spoken words. As individual sensory pathways only provide a partial representation of the sensory
information available, selecting the context-appropriate behavioral response to a multimodal stimulus often
requires integrating information across modalities. How do neural circuits perform this fundamental
computation? Our current understanding of sensory processing is predominantly built upon studies that have
focused on single sensory modalities, working into the brain beginning from sensory receptors. As a result, we
have a deep understanding of peripheral circuit computations in many different experimental contexts.
However, working inward, cell-type by cell-type, has left our understanding of the circuits and computational
principles that link sensation to action incomplete. Moreover, experimental strategies that focus exclusively on
single sensory modalities cannot, by design, lead to insights into how the unified percepts that guide behavior
can be assembled from information emerging in separate sensory processing streams. Here we leverage
whole-brain imaging and advanced computational approaches to establish the fruit fly Drosophila as a model
system for uncovering fundamental principles underpinning multisensory integration. This proposal has three
goals. First, we will optimize whole-brain imaging in this experimental system, and use this technology to
comprehensively characterize population dynamics underpinning the sensations of vision, mechanosensation
and taste. Second, we will systematically quantify circuit interactions between these sensory modalities and
across-animal variability, testing computational models of statistical inference, and identifying the algorithmic
bases of multimodal integration. Third, we will link population dynamics to the response properties of single
cell-types, providing a powerful path to characterizing circuit and synaptic mechanisms. Taken together, by
developing and applying improved methods for large-scale monitoring of neural activity, combined with
computational modeling and quantitative analysis, this project will greatly expand our understanding of sensory
processing mechanisms across the brain.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10310712
- **Project number:** 3R01NS110060-03S1
- **Recipient organization:** STANFORD UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Thomas Robert Clandinin
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $94,853
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2021-04-01 → 2023-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10310712

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10310712, Population Neural Activity Mediating Sensory Perception Across Modalities (3R01NS110060-03S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10310712. Licensed CC0.

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