NCS-FO: Unraveling Cortical Circuits for Auditory Scene Analysis

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In everyday social situations, normal hearing humans are able to listen to a speaker in the midst of other people talking and other sound sources. This is an example of a general problem termed auditory scene analysis. The understanding of auditory scene analysis remains a challenging problem in a diverse range of fields such as neuroscience, computer science, speech recognition and engineering, after more than 50 years of research. Although a difficult problem for machines and hearing impaired listeners, humans with normal hearing solve it with relative ease. This suggests the existence of a solution to this problem in the brain, but this solution remains unknown. This project will investigate how the brain solves this problem. By revealing circuits in the brain that contribute to the solution, this project will ultimately improve quality of life through applications in medical devices, e.g., hearing aids and cochlear implants; benefit society through applications in technology, e.g., applications for speech recognition; and create an educational platform to train students to integrate knowledge from a variety of disciplines to address challenging and important societal problems.The spatial location of different sound sources is an important component of auditory scene analysis. The auditory cortex, with its unique spatial sound processing ability, is thought to play an important role in auditory scene analysis, although the underlying neural network mechanisms remain largely unknown. This project will investigate cortical circuits for auditory scene analysis in the primary auditory cortex of the mouse, employing powerful optogenetic tools to investigate both bottom-up and top-down mechanisms. First, the investigators will examine the influence of behavioral states on cortical spatial representations of sound mixtures across different cortical layers and test the hypotheses that such spatial representations vary across cortical layers and behavioral states of the animal. Second, the investigators will examine the causal role of parvalbumin positive (PV) inhibitory interneurons versus somatostatin positive (SOM) inhibitory interneurons in the primary auditory cortex, using optogenetic manipulations, and test the hypothesis that PV interneurons are critical in mediating bottom-up signaling, whereas SOM interneurons are selectively engaged during active behavioral states. Finally, the investigators will construct a computational model of the primary auditory cortex including excitatory, PV and SOM neurons to explain the experimental results and make predictions for future experiments.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.