Emergent selectivity for task-relevant stimuli in higher-order auditory cortex

Serin Atiani; Stephen V David; Diego Elgueda; Michael Locastro; Susanne Radtke-Schuller; Shihab A Shamma; Jonathan B Fritz

doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2014.02.029

Emergent selectivity for task-relevant stimuli in higher-order auditory cortex

Neuron. 2014 Apr 16;82(2):486-99. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2014.02.029.

Authors

Serin Atiani¹, Stephen V David², Diego Elgueda³, Michael Locastro³, Susanne Radtke-Schuller⁴, Shihab A Shamma⁵, Jonathan B Fritz⁶

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Systems Research, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA; BRAMS, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QE H3A 2B4, Canada.
² Institute for Systems Research, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA; Oregon Hearing Research Center, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR 97239, USA.
³ Institute for Systems Research, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
⁴ Division of Neurobiology, Biocenter of Ludwig Maximilians University, 80539 Munich, Germany.
⁵ Institute for Systems Research, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA; Department of Cognitive Studies, École Normale Supérieure, 75014 Paris, France.
⁶ Institute for Systems Research, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA. Electronic address: ripple@isr.umd.edu.

Abstract

A variety of attention-related effects have been demonstrated in primary auditory cortex (A1). However, an understanding of the functional role of higher auditory cortical areas in guiding attention to acoustic stimuli has been elusive. We recorded from neurons in two tonotopic cortical belt areas in the dorsal posterior ectosylvian gyrus (dPEG) of ferrets trained on a simple auditory discrimination task. Neurons in dPEG showed similar basic auditory tuning properties to A1, but during behavior we observed marked differences between these areas. In the belt areas, changes in neuronal firing rate and response dynamics greatly enhanced responses to target stimuli relative to distractors, allowing for greater attentional selection during active listening. Consistent with existing anatomical evidence, the pattern of sensory tuning and behavioral modulation in auditory belt cortex links the spectrotemporal representation of the whole acoustic scene in A1 to a more abstracted representation of task-relevant stimuli observed in frontal cortex.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Acoustic Stimulation
Animals
Attention / physiology*
Auditory Cortex / physiology*
Auditory Pathways / physiology
Auditory Perception / physiology*
Avoidance Learning / physiology
Brain Mapping*
Conditioning, Classical / physiology
Female
Ferrets
Membrane Potentials / physiology
Neurons
Psychoacoustics
Wakefulness

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding