The effects of spectrally imbalanced sound on auditory cortical organization

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Our recent finding that passive exposure for six to 12 weeks to sound enhanced in a restricted frequency range and at moderate loudness, and that does not result in hearing loss, produced long-lasting changes in auditory cortex. These changes took about 3 months post-exposure in quiet to recover. This may induce rethinking of the concept of a 'safe acoustic environment'. We now plan to expose animals to various types of sound environments. We propose to assess the importance of various aspects of sound and the age of the animals in inducing these changes in the brain. One of these aspects is to mimic a 12 hour noisy work/recreation condition interspersed with 12 h quiet night time. In this way consequences of the sound exposure for real life situations might be revealed. We will evaluate these effects, by recording neural activity from auditory brainstem and cortex.