Neural Coding Primate Vocalizations in Auditory Cortex

描述（由申请人提供）：本论文建议的目标是调查的神经编码的物种特定的通信声音在普通绒猴（Callithrix jacchus jacchus）使用统计准确的合成发声。这些虚拟发声几乎完全是根据一组声学参数定义的，这些参数是从我们殖民地动物记录的数百个实际发声中测量出来的。这些参数可以被系统地操纵，以精确地确定发声的声学特性是重要的发声选择性反应在听觉皮层。这些刺激代表了一个巨大的进步，在单一的发声令牌刺激已被用于皮质发声编码的研究。我们希望解决的一个问题是什么样的作用谐波和时间组合的敏感性在塑造发声的反应，因为这些机制已被发现是重要的鸣禽和回声定位蝙蝠的发声选择性。另一个问题，我们感兴趣的调查是在发声处理的频谱和包络信息的相对重要性。虚拟发声刺激允许我们独立地操纵呼叫中的频率和幅度信息，以便可以严格地解决这个问题。最后，我们感兴趣的是记录从多个区域的听觉皮层，特别是侧带领域AL和CL，为了严格测试最近提出的理论，AL领域表现出更高程度的发声选择性比CL。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this thesis proposal is to investigate the neural coding of species-specific communication sounds in the common marmoset (callithrix jacchus jacchus) using statistically accurate synthetic vocalizations. These virtual vocalizations are defined almost entirely in terms of a set of acoustical parameters which have been measured from hundreds of actual vocalizations recorded from animals in our colony. These parameters can be systematically manipulated in order to determine precisely which acoustical properties of the vocalization are important for vocalization selective responses in the auditory cortex. These stimuli represent a tremendous improvement over the single vocalization token stimuli which have been employed in studies of cortical vocalization encoding. One issue which we hope to address is what role harmonic and temporal combination sensitivity plays in shaping responses to vocalizations, as these mechanisms have been found to be important for vocalization selectivity in the songbird and echolocating bat. Another issue which we are interested in investigating is the relative importance of spectral and envelope information in vocalization processing. The virtual vocalization stimuli allow us to manipulate the frequency and amplitude information in the call independently so that this question can be rigorously addressed. Lastly we are interested in recording from multiple regions of the auditory cortex, in particular the lateral belt fields AL and CL, in order to critically test the recently proposed theory that the AL field exhibits a higher degree of vocalization selectivity than CL.