Auditory efferents facilitate sound localization in noise in humans.
Auditory efferents facilitate sound localization in noise in humans.
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DOI：
10.1523/jneurosci.0248-11.2011
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发表时间：
2011-05-04
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Moulin A
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Andéol G;Guillaume A;Micheyl C;Savel S;Pellieux L;Moulin A
哺乳动物的听觉系统包含下行神经通路，其中一些通路通过内侧橄榄耳蜗区(MOC)系统投射到耳蜗处。这个传出的听觉系统的功能还不完全清楚。对OC损伤动物的行为学研究表明，MOC有助于噪声中的声音定位。在目前的工作中，测量了正常听力人的噪声诱导的OC活动(“OC反射”)和在噪声中的声音定位性能。与早期的研究一致，这两项指标都被发现在不同的人之间有很大的不同。重要的是，OC反射强度与噪声对声定位性能的影响显著相关，OC反射越强，噪声的影响越小。这些结果表明，噪声激活MOC有助于抵消背景噪声对方向相关光谱特征的神经表征的不利影响，这对于在上下和前后维度上的准确定位尤为重要。
The mammalian auditory system contains descending neural pathways, some of which project onto the cochlea via the medial olivocochlear (MOC) system. The function of this efferent auditory system is not entirely clear. Behavioral studies in animals with OC lesions suggest that the MOC serves to facilitate sound localization in noise. In the current work, noise-induced OC activity (the “OC reflex”) and sound-localization performance in noise were measured in normal-hearing humans. Consistent with earlier studies, both measures were found to vary substantially across individuals. Importantly, significant correlations were observed between OC reflex strength and the effect of noise on sound-localization performance; the stronger the OC reflex, the less marked the effect of noise. These results suggest that MOC activation by noise helps to counteract the detrimental effects of background noise on neural representations of direction-dependent spectral features, which are especially important for accurate localization in the up/down and front/back dimensions.