Auditory Thalamus and Auditory Cortex Are Equally Modulated by Context during Flexible Categorization of Sounds

Jaramillo, S., Borges, K., Zador, A. M. (April 2014) Auditory Thalamus and Auditory Cortex Are Equally Modulated by Context during Flexible Categorization of Sounds. Journal of Neuroscience, 34 (15). pp. 5291-301. ISSN 0270-6474

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URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24719107

DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.4888-13.2014

Abstract

In a dynamic world, animals must adapt rapidly to changes in the meaning of environmental cues. Such changes can influence the neural representation of sensory stimuli. Previous studies have shown that associating a stimulus with a reward or punishment can modulate neural activity in the auditory cortex (AC) and its thalamic input, the medial geniculate body (MGB). However, it is not known whether changes in stimulus-action associations alone can also modulate neural responses in these areas. We designed a categorization task for rats in which the boundary that separated low- from high-frequency sounds varied several times within a behavioral session, thus allowing us to manipulate the action associated with some sounds without changing the associated reward. We developed a computational model that accounted for the rats' performance and compared predictions from this model with sound-evoked responses from single neurons in AC and MGB in animals performing this task. We found that the responses of 15% of AC neurons and 16% of MGB neurons were modulated by changes in stimulus-action association and that the magnitude of the modulation was comparable between the two brain areas. Our results suggest that the AC and thalamus play only a limited role in mediating changes in associations between acoustic stimuli and behavioral responses.

Item Type:	Paper
Subjects:	organism description > animal behavior organism description > animal behavior > auditory organs, tissues, organelles, cell types and functions > tissues types and functions > auditory cortex organs, tissues, organelles, cell types and functions > tissues types and functions > thalamus
CSHL Authors:	Borges, Katharine Jaramillo Escobar, Santiago Zador, Anthony M.
Communities:	CSHL labs > Zador lab
Depositing User:	Matt Covey
Date:	9 April 2014
Date Deposited:	18 Apr 2014 16:33
Last Modified:	24 Apr 2015 16:25
PMCID:	PMC3983805
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://repository.cshl.edu/id/eprint/29771

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