Degrees of relevance? The neuronal representation of sound sources in primary auditory cortex during active localization

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• 批准号: 418090239
• 负责人: Privatdozent Dr. Michael Pecka
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Lehrstuhl für Neurobiologie
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2018-12-31 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/418090239?language=en
• 关键词: Degrees; relevance; neuronal; representation; sound

How do we listen to specific talkers within a crowd or localize an individual car in heavy traffic? In everyday life, multiple sound sources are often simultaneously active, yet our brain unravels this mix of sounds into distinct information streams according to the sources of origin. Despite decades of research, a functional understanding of the neuronal mechanisms of this phenomenon, which is termed auditory scene analysis (ASA), remains elusive. Most studies on ASA to date focused on the instant processing of simple sounds in passive (i.e. behaviorally irrelevant) settings and a head-centered (egocentric) reference frame. However, during realistic ASA, there is a continuous modulation of the sensory input. Particularly, since the relative angle between the head and the sound source is constantly changing due to self-motion, a egocentric coding of sound source positions is inadequate. Rather, a representation of absolute (allocentric) sound source location in space would be beneficial. Moreover, ASA is fundamentally characterized by the selective listening to a particular sound source of interest, suggesting that the coding of a sound source likewise depends on its goal-specific relevance.Accordingly, the overall goal of this project is to reveal the neuronal processing and representation of sound source locations during active navigation and its dependency on behavioral relevance. To this end, I developed an ASA paradigm with multiple sound sources, in which freely moving rodents perform selective listening and localization. Using wireless chronic recordings in primary auditory cortex during task performance in this paradigm, I aim to: 1) Determine the nature of spatial representation during active navigation2) Decipher how spatial representations in A1 evolve during the learning of context-specific spatial relevance3) Assess the context-dependency of egocentric representations of behaviourally relevant sound localization cues.

我们如何倾听人群中特定的谈话者，或者在拥挤的交通中定位一辆单独的汽车？在日常生活中，多个声源经常同时活跃，但我们的大脑根据声音的来源将这种混合的声音分解成不同的信息流。尽管经过了几十年的研究，但对这种现象的神经机制，即听觉场景分析(ASA)，仍然缺乏功能上的了解。到目前为止，大多数关于ASA的研究集中在被动(即行为无关)和以头部为中心(以自我为中心)参照系中对简单声音的即时加工。然而，在现实的ASA过程中，感觉输入是一个连续的调制。具体地说，由于头部和声源之间的相对角度由于自身运动而不断变化，因此声源位置的自我中心编码是不够的。相反，空间中绝对(分心)声源位置的表示将是有益的。此外，ASA的基本特征是对特定感兴趣的声源进行选择性倾听，这表明声源的编码同样取决于其特定目标的关联性。相应地，本项目的总体目标是揭示主动导航过程中声源位置的神经元处理和表征及其对行为关联性的依赖。为此，我开发了一种具有多个声源的ASA范例，在该范例中，自由活动的啮齿动物执行选择性聆听和定位。在这一范式中，利用任务执行过程中初级听觉皮质的无线慢性记录，我的目标是：1)确定主动导航过程中空间表征的性质；2)破译A1中的空间表征如何在学习特定语境的空间关联的过程中演变；3)评估行为相关声音定位线索的自我中心表征的语境依赖性。