Vibrations are ubiquitous in nature, shaping behavior across the animal kingdom. For mammals, mechanical vibrations acting on the body are detected by mechanoreceptors of the skin and deep tissues and processed by the somatosensory system, while sound waves traveling through air are captured by the cochlea and encoded in the auditory system. Here, we report that mechanical vibrations detected by the body’s Pacinian corpuscle neurons, which are distinguished by their ability to entrain to high-frequency (40–1,000 Hz) environmental vibrations, are prominently encoded by neurons in the lateral cortex of the inferior colliculus (LCIC) of the midbrain. Remarkably, most LCIC neurons receive convergent Pacinian and auditory input and respond more strongly to coincident tactile-auditory stimulation than to either modality alone. Moreover, the LCIC is required for behavioral responses to high-frequency mechanical vibrations. Thus, environmental vibrations captured by Pacinian corpuscles are encoded in the auditory midbrain to mediate behavior.

中文翻译：

---

听觉中脑介导触觉振动感应


振动在自然界中无处不在，塑造了整个动物王国的行为。对于哺乳动物来说，作用在身体上的机械振动由皮肤和深层组织的机械感受器检测到，并由体感系统处理，而在空气中传播的声波则由耳蜗捕获并在听觉系统中编码。在这里，我们报告了人体的 Pacinian 小体神经元检测到的机械振动，其特点是能够夹带高频 （40-1,000 Hz） 环境振动，由中脑下丘 （LCIC） 外侧皮层中的神经元显着编码。值得注意的是，大多数 LCIC 神经元接收收敛的 Pacinian 和听觉输入，并且对重合触觉刺激的反应比单独对任何一种模式的反应都更强烈。此外，对高频机械振动的行为反应需要 LCIC。因此，Pacinian 小体捕获的环境振动在听觉中脑中编码以介导行为。