Auditory-based navigation: attentional shifts rapidly modulate hippocampal codes

基于听觉的导航：注意力转移快速调节海马代码

• 批准号: 10592267
• 负责人: CYNTHIA F MOSS
• 金额: $ 44.44万
• 依托单位: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-04-01 至 2026-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10592267
• 关键词: 3-Dimensional; Acoustics; Aging; Alzheimer' s Disease; Animal Experimentation; Animal Model; Animals; Attention; Auditory; Behavior; Birds; Brain; Brain region; Callithrix; Canes; Cells; Chiroptera; Clinical; Code; Cognitive; Complex; Echolocation; Environment; Epilepsy; Exhibits; Flying body movement; Food; Foundations; Functional disorder; Future; Health; Hippocampus; Home; Human; Impairment; Knowledge; Link; Location; Major Depressive Disorder; Mammals; Maps; Measurement; Measures; Medical; Medical Device; Memory; Mental disorders; Monitor; Multimedia; Neurobiology; Neurodegenerative Disorders; Neurologic Deficit; Neurons; Neurosciences; Parkinson Disease; Patient Monitoring; Positioning Attribute; Research; Rewards; Rodent; Schizophrenia; Signal Transduction; Speed; Structure; Symptoms; System; Technology; Testing; Tongue; Training Programs; Travel; Work; active control; attentional modulation; blind; design; directed attention; experimental study; fly; gaze; innovation; insight; light weight; meter; millisecond; miniaturize; miniaturized device; nervous system disorder; neural; new technology; novel; place fields; social; sonar; sound; spatial memory; way finding; wireless; wireless electronic

Project Summary/Abstract The hippocampus, a brain structure implicated in spatial memory and navigation, show changes in the course of aging, mental illnesses, neurological disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases. Hippocampal dysfunctions give rise to diverse clinical symptoms, many of which are tied to impairments in attention and navigation. In healthy subjects, spatial attention and navigation are tightly linked, because mapping the environment requires attention to one’s surroundings. Furthermore, while navigating, humans and other animals switch attention between two complementary coordinate systems: a world-centered reference frame for monitoring absolute position, and an egocentric reference frame for monitoring relative position with respect to obstacles, conspecifics, and targets. Little is known about neural dynamics that underlie the rapid shifts in attention that accompany switches between these reference frames—primarily because reliable indicators of spatial attention are lacking in standard animal models. The proposed research bridges this gap by exploiting the bat, a mammal that actively controls its echolocation signals to attend to objects while navigating—similar to many blind humans who use echoes from self-produced sounds (tongue clicks and cane tapping) to localize objects and navigate indoors and outdoors. Both bats and human blind echolocators attend to objects using their sonar, generating an ‘acoustic flashlight’—which provides a direct metric of their moment-to-moment spatial attention. The proposed experiments will track overt spatial attentional shifts while wirelessly recording hippocampal neurons to study attentional effects on neural activity. The hypothesis to be tested is that overt spatial attention rapidly modulates hippocampal spatial codes, by sharpening spatial representation and by switching hippocampal coding between world-centered and egocentric coordinate frames. To do so, animals will navigate under two conditions: (1) a stationary and predictable environment where animals direct attention to fixed objects, and where attentional demands are relatively low; and (2) an unpredictable environment with moving conspecifics and targets, where attentional demands are high and animals shift attention rapidly to inspect dynamic objects. These predictable and unpredictable conditions will be studied in two different experimental setups: a three-dimensional multimedia test room where animals navigate slowly, and a 200- meter, one-dimensional tunnel where animals travel at high speeds. Because echolocation provides a powerful explicit indicator of overt spatial attention, this research will yield transformative insights into attention-driven hippocampal dynamics during naturalistic behavior. The findings will offer new insights into neurological deficits in spatial navigation and memory, yield technological advances in the design of lightweight, miniaturized assistive medical devices used to monitor patient health, and will shed new light on the neural basis of auditory attention and auditory-based navigation in blind humans.

项目概要/摘要 海马体是一种与空间记忆和导航有关的大脑结构，在过程中显示出变化 衰老、精神疾病、神经系统疾病和神经退行性疾病。海马功能障碍 引起多种临床症状，其中许多与注意力和导航障碍有关。在 健康的受试者，空间注意力和导航是紧密相连的，因为绘制环境需要 注意周围环境。此外，在导航时，人类和其他动物会转移注意力 两个互补坐标系之间：用于监控绝对值的以世界为中心的参考系 位置，以及用于监控相对于障碍物的相对位置的以自我为中心的参考系， 具体和目标。人们对注意力快速转移背后的神经动力学知之甚少。 伴随着这些参考系之间的切换——主要是因为可靠的空间指标 标准动物模型缺乏关注。拟议的研究通过利用蝙蝠来弥补这一差距， 一种在导航时主动控制其回声定位信号以关注物体的哺乳动物——与许多哺乳动物类似 盲人利用自身产生的声音（舌头咔嗒声和手杖敲击声）的回声来定位物体 并在室内和室外导航。蝙蝠和人类的盲回声定位器都利用它们的听觉来注意物体 声纳，产生“声学手电筒”——它可以直接测量它们的即时空间 注意力。拟议的实验将在无线记录的同时跟踪明显的空间注意力转移 海马神经元研究注意力对神经活动的影响。要检验的假设是公开的 空间注意力通过锐化空间表征和通过 在以世界为中心和以自我为中心的坐标系之间切换海马编码。为此，动物 会在两种条件下导航：(1) 固定且可预测的环境，动物会集中注意力 固定物体，注意力要求相对较低的地方； (2) 不可预测的环境 移动的同种动物和目标，注意力要求很高，动物会迅速将注意力转移到 检查动态物体。这些可预测和不可预测的条件将在两种不同的情况下进行研究 实验装置：一个三维多媒体测试室，动物在其中缓慢导航，以及一个 200 米长的一维隧道，动物在其中高速移动。因为回声定位提供了强大的 公开空间注意力的明确指标，这项研究将对注意力驱动产生变革性的见解 自然行为期间的海马动态。这些发现将为神经缺陷提供新的见解 在空间导航和记忆领域，在轻量化、小型化设计方面取得了技术进步 用于监测患者健康的辅助医疗设备，并将为听觉的神经基础提供新的线索 盲人的注意力和基于听觉的导航。