Functional organization of primate auditory cortex: a comparison between monkey and human

项目摘要 听觉皮层的功能是如何组织的，这种组织如何支持对 行为相关的信号，比如同种的发声或言语？非人类灵长类动物模型 听觉皮层可以帮助我们回答这些问题，但我们对它们的对应关系的理解， 人类是不完整的。包括人类在内的灵长类动物的广泛解剖学发现表明， 听觉皮层中的分层处理阶段：核心、带和副带。在感觉系统中， 人们认为，感官刺激的表征变得不那么普遍，而更多地与行为联系在一起， 有机体的相关性，因为你提升了感官层次。例如，高级视觉皮层 包含有选择性地对面部刺激做出反应的神经元，而初级视觉皮层对面部刺激的选择性更强。 所有刺激类别的低水平特征。有理由认为，人类的选择性表现 在高级人类听觉皮层中会发现语音，并且有证据支持这一点。然而，在这方面， 我们对人类听觉皮层的功能组织知之甚少， 这种选择性表征的产生源自听觉皮层层级的沿着变换。 非人类灵长类动物模型对于解决这些悬而未决的问题特别有吸引力，因为它是 在进化上接近人类，侵入性技术可以很容易地应用于了解神经功能。 然而，我们还没有广泛研究非人类灵长类动物的听觉皮层以外的核心领域。在 特别是抛物面场很少被探测。 这项研究的目的是广泛绘制非人类灵长类动物的听觉皮层， 核心带副熔体，使用介观和微观记录方法，然后比较猴子 和人类的核心-腰带-副腰带组织使用相同的方法和刺激。在这样做的时候，我们相信， 为理解产生复杂听觉感知的感觉过程迈出了一大步 支持语音交流。此外，我们希望揭示听觉皮层的那些方面， 要么是特定物种独有的，要么是跨物种保守的。从拟议的工作结果进行 不仅可以为我们对感觉处理的基本理解提供信息，而且还可以为我们提供关键的信息。 为理解具有强烈听觉成分的交流障碍的病因学奠定了基础。

Project summary How is auditory cortex functionally organized, and how does this organization support the perception of behaviorally relevant signals like conspecific vocalizations or speech? Non-human primate models of the auditory cortex can help us to answer these questions, yet our understanding of their correspondence to humans is incomplete. Extensive anatomical findings across primate species, including humans, point to three hierarchical processing stages in auditory cortex: the core, the belt and the parabelt. Across sensory systems, it is believed that the representations of sensory stimuli become less general and more tied to the behavioral relevance of the organism as you ascend the sensory hierarchy. For instance, higher order visual cortex contains neurons that selectively respond to face stimuli, whereas primary visual cortex is more selective for low level features across all categories of stimuli. It stands to reason that selective representations of human speech would be found in higher order human auditory cortex, and there is evidence to support this. However, we know very little about the functional organization of human auditory cortex, nor the basic sensory transformations along the auditory cortical hierarchy from which such selective representations would arise. The non-human primate model is particularly attractive for tackling these outstanding issues, since it is evolutionarily close to humans and invasive techniques can readily be applied to understand neural function. However, we have yet to extensively investigate non-human primate auditory cortex beyond the core fields. In particular, parabelt fields are very rarely probed. The purpose of the proposed research is to extensively map non-human primate auditory cortex, from core to belt to parabelt, using both mesoscopic and microscopic recording methods, then to compare monkey and human core-belt-parabelt organization using identical methods and stimuli. In doing so, we believe we will provide a large step toward understanding the sensory processes that give rise to complex auditory perception and support vocal communication. Moreover, we hope to uncover those aspects of auditory cortex that are either unique to a given species, or conserved across species. The findings from the proposed work carry the potential to not only inform our basic understanding of sensory processing, but may also provide key foundations to understanding the etiology of communication disorders with strong auditory components.