Constructing auditory space: modulation of the spatial map by auditory cues and landmarks

构建听觉空间：通过听觉线索和地标调制空间图

• 批准号: 527393560
• 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
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/527393560?language=en
• 关键词: Constructing; auditory; space; modulation; spatial

Pathfinding and navigation through one’s environment are crucial for survival. Research over 50 years identified that in order to build and update the location of self in the world both external (allocentric) and internal (idiothetic) information streams are used by the brain. Accordingly, a current central goal of navigational neuroscience is to understand how sensory modalities influence and interact with the internal spatial representation. To this end, researchers have manipulated mainly visual, tactile (walls, borders) and/or olfactory sensory information. Auditory cues are highly informative for our orientation in the environment. Yet surprisingly, it has been reported that auditory information can not or only poorly influence orientation in the environment, and the interactions of the auditory modality with idiothetic maps has been more or less overlooked. Specifically, to what extent and how auditory cues and learned audio-spatial associations shape the internal spatial representation is not well investigated. The Sensory-Island Task is a well-tested experimental paradigm for probing auditory perception in freely navigating rodents. SIT readily allows testing to what extent sound sources are used as spatially-relevant cues for pathfinding and to investigate the formation of local audio-spatial associations between a particular sound with a fixed spatial location. Moreover, SIT enables foraging in absolute darkness, rendering the spatial orientation dependent on auditory cues and idiothetic signals only. Thus, it enables us to introduce a conflict between the auditory spatial reference frame and the spatial map maintained by an idiothetic path integrator. To gain understanding over the construction of the auditory space and its influence on the spatial representation we perform chronic recordings from the hippocampal area CA1 (HPC CA1, place cells) and the retrosplenial cortex (RSC, head direction cells) in freely-behaving animals in the audio-spatial SIT task. As RSC serves as a hub integrating different types of idiothetic and allocentric information including landmark information and reward location, we also seek to find neural correlates of spatially-relevant auditory landmarks, exemplified by direction or distance tuning to the location of the sound source. In addition, as spatial associations develop with learning, we will vary the degree of prior gained task experience to test how fast the audio-spatial associations can be established and to what extent it affects the strength of its spatial modulation. Finally, simultaneous electrophysiological recordings in the hippocampus and RSC would allow to investigate the coherence of the influence of the auditory space on both place cell and head direction systems. Together, this project will provide insight into the mechanisms of auditory-based pathfinding and spatial representations.

在环境中寻找路径和导航对于生存至关重要。50多年的研究表明，为了建立和更新自我在世界上的位置，大脑使用外部（allocentric）和内部（idiothetic）信息流。因此，导航神经科学的当前中心目标是了解感觉模态如何影响内部空间表征并与之相互作用。为此，研究人员主要操纵视觉，触觉（墙壁，边界）和/或嗅觉感官信息。听觉线索对于我们在环境中的定位是非常有用的。然而，令人惊讶的是，据报道，听觉信息不能或只有很小的影响方向在环境中，和听觉通道与独特的地图的相互作用已或多或少被忽视。具体来说，在何种程度上，以及如何听觉线索和学习的音频空间协会形状的内部空间表征没有得到很好的研究。感觉岛任务是一个经过充分测试的实验范式，用于探测自由航行的啮齿动物的听觉感知。SIT很容易允许测试声源在多大程度上被用作寻路的空间相关线索，并调查特定声音与固定空间位置之间的局部音频空间关联的形成。此外，SIT使觅食在绝对黑暗中，渲染的空间方向依赖于听觉线索和独特的信号。 因此，它使我们能够引入听觉空间参考框架和空间地图之间的冲突保持一个独特的路径集成。为了了解听觉空间的结构及其对空间表征的影响，我们在听觉空间SIT任务中对自由行为动物的海马CA 1区（HPC CA 1，定位细胞）和压后皮层（RSC，头部方向细胞）进行了慢性记录。由于RSC作为一个枢纽集成不同类型的独特的和allocentric的信息，包括地标信息和奖励的位置，我们还试图找到神经相关的空间相关的听觉地标，例如方向或距离调谐到声源的位置。此外，随着空间关联随着学习的发展，我们将改变先前获得的任务经验的程度，以测试音频-空间关联建立的速度以及它在多大程度上影响其空间调制的强度。最后，同时在海马和RSC的电生理记录将允许调查的连贯性的听觉空间的影响，对位置细胞和头部方向系统。总之，这个项目将提供深入了解的机制，基于地图的寻路和空间表示。