Influence of moderate hearing loss on auditory perception & cortical processing

项目总结 许多听觉感知技能在漫长的过程中成熟(在人类中)，一直到十几岁。如果 听力在发育过程中受到干扰，可能会在听觉和听觉方面存在长期的缺陷 语言习得。令人惊讶的是，支持较晚出现的听觉编码特性的成熟 知觉技能在很大程度上是未知的；我们所知道的很少，只是基于麻醉后的录音 动物。这也是为什么我们理解轻到中度听力损失对中枢听觉的影响 成熟期尚未确定。为了解决这些问题，我将研究清醒动物的功能发育 第一次，探索听觉编码特性是如何受感觉经验影响的。中环 假说是发育过程中的中度听力损失会破坏听觉皮质的编码特性 (ACX)，导致听觉知觉表现的可测量缺陷。有三个相关的目标：目标1 将决定发育传导性听力损失是否会扰乱成年沙土鼠的感知能力。 动物将接受两项任务的测试，这两项任务在人类身上已知具有不同的成熟率和 受听力损失的影响。这包括正弦幅度(SAM)和调频的检测 (SFM)信号。目标2将确定在青少年发展过程中的听觉任务训练是否可以 拯救饲养的传导性听力损失动物的正常知觉行为。目标3将描述 目标1中检查的知觉潜在的神经编码特性的正常发展速度，并将 评估这些编码属性是否以与知觉缺陷相关的方式受到干扰 在目标1中检查。在下列期间，将从清醒动物的ACX获得单位记录 随着耳蜗体的成熟而发育。主要目标是确定编码属性是否 按照行为研究的建议，以不同的速度成熟，并确定SAM或SFM编码是否 易受早期听力损失影响。综合起来，这些数据将为清醒状态下的听觉编码提供第一次分析 发展中的动物，并揭示中度听力损失是否会扰乱感知技能和编码 支持它们的属性。

PROJECT SUMMARY Many auditory perceptual skills mature over a long time course (in humans), well into the teenage years. If hearing is disrupted during development, there may be long-lasting deficits in auditory perception and language acquisition. Surprisingly, maturation of the auditory coding properties that support late-emerging perceptual skills are largely unknown; what little we do know is based solely on recordings from anesthetized animals. This is also why our understanding of the effect of mild to moderate hearing loss on central auditory maturation is unsettled. To address these issues, I will examine functional development in awake animals for the first time, and explore how auditory coding properties are influenced by sensory experience. The central hypothesis is that moderate hearing loss during development disrupts coding properties in the auditory cortex (ACx), leading to measurable deficits in auditory perceptual performance. There are three related aims: AIM 1 will determine whether developmental conductive hearing loss disrupts the perceptual abilities of adult gerbils. Animals will be tested on two tasks that, in humans, are known to have different rates of maturation and to be affected by hearing loss. These include detection of sinusoidal amplitude (sAM) and frequency modulated (sFM) signals. AIM 2 will determine whether training on an auditory task during juvenile development can rescue normal perceptual behavior in animals reared with conductive hearing loss. AIM 3 will characterize the normal rate of development of neural coding properties underlying the percepts examined in Aim 1, and will assess whether these coding properties are perturbed in a manner that correlates with perceptual deficits examined in AIM 1. Single unit recordings will be obtained from the ACx of awake animals during the period of development that follows cochlear maturation. The broad goals are to determine whether coding properties mature at different rates, as suggested by behavioral studies, and to determine whether sAM or sFM coding is vulnerable to early hearing loss. Together, these data will provide the first analysis of auditory coding in awake developing animals, and reveal whether moderate hearing loss disrupts both perceptual skills and the coding properties that support them.