Neural coding of a cue to auditory space, in noisy environments

一般背景：当环境嘈杂时，我们确定声音来自何处的能力（定位能力）会受到严重干扰。这会影响我们在许多普通任务中的能力，例如在嘈杂的背景下保持谈话，以及其他关键任务（例如，在嘈杂的工厂环境中遵循警告信号）。在有一定听力损失的人中，即使只是部分耳聋，即使在背景中没有噪音时，定位能力也会受到干扰，并且在环境嘈杂时受到更严重的干扰。科学背景：我们的定位能力取决于大脑中神经元编码我们希望检测的声源位置的方式。通过对动物的研究，我们对神经元在沉默中进行编码的方式有了很多了解。然而，我们几乎不知道这种编码如何受到噪声背景的影响。此外，我们完全不知道这种编码，无论是在沉默中还是在有噪音的情况下，在听力损失的情况下是如何受到影响的。重要性：如果我们要了解听力损失对声音信号位置编码的影响，我们首先需要知道在正常听力的情况下噪声如何影响编码。本项目旨在获取这些信息。然后，我将扩展到研究这些影响的详细基础，即，究竟是什么机制在神经元中受到影响。然后我将确定来自不同位置的噪声如何影响不同位置的信号声音的编码。这些数据将为我们提供必要的基础，我们可以在以后继续研究噪声如何影响神经元对信号位置的编码。我计划通过从动物研究中获得的数据开发基于计算机的模型来增加当前研究的价值，这些模型将使我们能够预测声音信号位置的编码如何受到听力损失的影响，以及噪音环境如何加剧。

GENERAL BACKGROUND : Our ability to determine where a sound is coming from (localization ability) is severely disrupted when the environment is noisy. This affects our abilities at many ordinary tasks, such as keeping up a conversation in a noisy background, and also in other critical tasks (eg., in following warning signals in a noisy factory environment). In people who have some hearing loss, even if only partial deafness, localization ability is disrupted even when there is no noise in the background, and is even more severely disrupted when the environment is noisy. SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND : Our localization ability depends on the way neurons in the brain code the position of a source of sound we wish to detect. From studies in animals we know a lot about the way in which neurons do this coding in silence. However, we know almost nothing about how this coding is affected by a noisy background. Further, we know absolutely nothing about how this coding, whether in silence or when there is noise, is affected when there is also a hearing loss. SIGNIFICANCE : If we are to understand the effects of hearing losses on coding of the location of a sound signal we need to know first how noise affects the coding in cases of normal hearing. This project aims to gain that information. I will then extend this to studying the detailed basis of these effects, ie., exactly what mechanisms are affected in the neurons. Then I will determine how noise from different positions affects the coding of signal sounds at differnt positions. These data will provide us the essential base from which we can, later, go on to study how noise affects coding by neurons of the location of a signal. I plan to increase the value of the current study by developing, from the data gained in the studies in animals, computer-based models that will allow us to predict how coding of sound signal location is affected by hearing loss, and how this is exacerbated by noisy environments.