Organization and experience-dependence of auditory coding in forebrain

前脑听觉编码的组织和经验依赖性

• 批准号: 8297887
• 负责人: Allison Jane Doupe
• 金额: $ 32.83万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-03-25 至 2017-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8297887
• 关键词: Acoustics; Adult; Affect; Animals; Area; Attention; Auditory; Auditory area; Autistic Disorder; Behavioral; Birds; Brain; Cells; Code; Communication; Complex; Dependence; Development; Dimensions; Discrimination; Dyslexia; Employee Strikes; Fathers; Finches; Foundations; Functional disorder; GABA Agonists; Hearing; Hearing problem; Human; Information Theory; Inherited; Injection of therapeutic agent; Knowledge; Label; Lead; Learning; Left; Life; Mammals; Maps; Memory; Modeling; Molecular; Neurons; Operant Conditioning; Output; Partner in relationship; Perception; Physiological; Population; Process; Property; Prosencephalon; Secondary to; Sensory; Signal Transduction; Solid; Songbirds; Speech; Speech Pathology; Staging; Stimulus; Structure; Symptoms; System; Techniques; Testing; Tracer; Training; Virus; Visual Cortex; arm; auditory feedback; auditory pathway; auditory stimulus; base; detector; disability; experience; gamma-Aminobutyric Acid; insight; neurophysiology; novel; receptive field; relating to nervous system; remediation; research study; response; sound; specific language impairment; speech processing; treatment strategy; vocalization; zebra finch

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Processing and perception of communication sounds such as speech are enormously important to humans, and hearing is a critical component of both. Yet we know surprisingly little about how the brain transforms auditory signals to accomplish these complex tasks. Our long-term objective is to further the development of a unified framework for understanding high-level auditory processing and how it changes, for good or ill, with experience and learning. To this end, we propose to study a stage in a central auditory circuit where there is a remarkable change from simple, primary-like response properties to complex vocalization-sensitivity, in the auditory forebrain of songbirds. These animals provide an excellent model for extracting general principles of higher-level sound processing, because they learn auditory tasks of similar difficulty to humans, and possess a hierarchical network of auditory areas that sub serve these tasks, including the avian equivalent of primary auditory cortex, field L, and several secondary areas that are the likely equivalent of belt cortex. Moreover, we have access to a rich set of auditory stimuli of behavioral relevance, songs. We recently found that within field L there is a strikingly orderly organization of receptiv fields, along spectral and temporal axes. We will ask whether and how this organization propagates to the next level, by mapping the response selectivity of these secondary areas to batteries of songs, using an information theory-based technique called maximally informative dimensions (MID). We will also record responses to songs learned earlier (from father, mate) to examine the additional hypothesis that sound memories learned early in life have a special representation in such areas. In parallel, we will test the anatomical and physiological contribution of the inputs from field L to these secondary areas, by selectively labeling or turnin off subsets of these inputs. Finally, armed with the knowledge of these circuits' organization, we will ask whether and how their receptive field organization and song representations change after birds learn a behavioral discrimination task that strongly focuses their attention on either spectral or temporal aspects of song, two key parameters mapped in field L, and critical both in normal and impaired auditory processing. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Hearing dysfunction is implicated in many disabilities including specific language impairments, dyslexia, and autism. A basic understanding of high-level auditory processing of complex sounds, as well as the ways in which this changes with experience, will provide a solid foundation for exploring symptoms and causes of altered hearing and perception, and may suggest new treatment strategies.

描述(申请人提供)：对语音等交流声音的处理和感知对人类非常重要，而听力是两者的关键组成部分。然而，令人惊讶的是，我们对大脑如何转换听觉信号来完成这些复杂任务知之甚少。我们的长期目标是进一步发展一个统一的框架，以了解高级听觉处理以及它是如何随着经验和学习而改变的，无论是好是坏。为此，我们建议研究鸣禽听觉前脑中的一个阶段，在这个阶段中，鸣禽的听觉前脑出现了从简单的初级反应特性到复杂的发声敏感性的显著变化。这些动物为提取高级声音处理的一般原理提供了一个极好的模型，因为它们学习与人类类似困难的听觉任务，并拥有为这些任务服务的听觉区域的分层网络，包括鸟类的初级听觉皮质、田野L和几个可能相当于腰带皮质的次级区域。此外，我们还可以接触到一组与行为相关的丰富的听觉刺激，如歌曲。我们最近发现，在L场中，接收场沿着光谱和时间轴有一种惊人的有序组织。我们将使用一种称为最大信息性维度(MID)的基于信息论的技术，通过将这些次级区域的反应选择性映射到歌曲电池，来询问这种组织是否以及如何传播到下一个水平。我们还将录制对早先(从父亲、配偶那里)学到的歌曲的反应，以检验另外一个假设，即在生命早期学习的声音记忆在这些区域具有特殊的代表性。同时，我们将通过选择性地标记或关闭这些输入的子集，来测试来自L场的输入对这些次级区域的解剖和生理贡献。最后，有了这些回路的组织知识，我们将询问鸟类学习到一项行为辨别任务后，它们的接受场组织和歌唱表征是否以及如何改变。该任务强烈地将它们的注意力集中在歌声的频谱或时间方面，这两个关键参数被定位在场L上，并且在正常和受损的听觉加工中都是关键的。 公共卫生相关性：听力障碍与许多残疾有关，包括特殊语言障碍、阅读障碍和自闭症。对复杂声音的高级听觉处理以及这种处理随经验变化的方式的基本了解，将为探索听力和知觉改变的症状和原因提供坚实的基础，并可能提出新的治疗策略。