DYNAMICS OF PHASE-INDEPENDENT SPECTRO-TEMPORAL TUNING IN PRIMARY AUDITORY CORTEX OF THE AWAKE FERRET

作者：Depireux D A^*; Dobbins H D; Marvit P; Shechter B

来源：Neuroscience, 2012, 214: 28-35.

DOI：10.1016/j.neuroscience.2012.04.029

• tuning dynamics
• auditory cortex
• auditory grating
• transient auditory grating
• spectro-temporal receptive field
• adaptive filtering

Tuning of cortical neurons is often measured as a static property, or during a steady-state regime, despite a number of studies suggesting that tuning depends on when it is measured during a neuron's response (e.g., onset vs. sustained vs. offset). We have previously shown that phase-locked tuning to feature transients evolves as a dynamic quantity from the onset of the sound. In this follow-up study, we examined the phase-independent tuning during feature transients. Based on previous results, we hypothesized phase-independent tuning should evolve on the same timescale as phase-locked tuning. We used stimuli of constant level, but alternating between flat spectro-temporal envelope and a modulated envelope with well-defined spectral density and temporal periodicity. This allowed the measure of changes in tuning to novel spectro-temporal content, as happens during running speech and other sounds with rapid transitions without a confounding change in sound level. For 95% of neurons, tuning changed significantly from the onset, over the course of the response. For a majority of these cells, the change occurred within the first 40 ms following a feature onset, often even around 10-20 ms. This solidifies the idea that tuning can change rapidly from onset tuning to the sustained, steady-state tuning.

• 出版日期2012-7-12