Auditory cortex directs the input-specific remodeling of thalamus

Nelson, Sultan L; Kong, Lingzhi; Liu, Xiuping; Yan, Jun

doi:10.1016/j.heares.2015.06.016

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…The auditory corticothalamic system is massive, develops early, before hearing onset (Torii et al, 2013), elicits responses in the majority of MGB neurons (Ryugo and Weinberger, 1976;Villa et al, 1991;He et al, 2002) that are strong enough to induce immediate-early gene expression (Guo et al, 2007;Sun et al, 2007), produces both short (2 ms) and long (hundreds of milliseconds) latency responses (Serkov et al, 1976) and elicits both excitation (the dominant response in the lemniscal ventral subdivision) and inhibition (likely mediated via the thalamic reticular nucleus; Amato et al, 1969;He, 1997He, , 2003bHe et al, 2002;Xiong et al, 2004;Yu et al, 2004;. Activation of corticothalamic fibers can adjust tuning and sensitivity of auditory thalamic neurons (Guo et al, 2017) and appears to be critical for performance in perceptuallychallenging tasks (Happel et al, 2014;Homma et al, 2017), as well as for directing plastic changes that occur in the thalamus (Zhang and Yan, 2008;Nelson et al, 2015). Importantly from the predictive coding perspective, corticothalamic projections appear to be organized topographically (Takayanagi and Ojima, 2006), such that cortical and thalamic areas that are matched for best frequency tend to produce corticothalamic excitation, while those that are unmatched tend to produce inhibition (He, 1997;He et al, 2002).…”

Section: Evidence That Auditory Corticofugal Systems Engage In Predictive Codingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Top-Down Inference in the Auditory System: Potential Roles for Corticofugal Projections

Asilador

Llano

2021

Front. Neural Circuits

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It has become widely accepted that humans use contextual information to infer the meaning of ambiguous acoustic signals. In speech, for example, high-level semantic, syntactic, or lexical information shape our understanding of a phoneme buried in noise. Most current theories to explain this phenomenon rely on hierarchical predictive coding models involving a set of Bayesian priors emanating from high-level brain regions (e.g., prefrontal cortex) that are used to influence processing at lower-levels of the cortical sensory hierarchy (e.g., auditory cortex). As such, virtually all proposed models to explain top-down facilitation are focused on intracortical connections, and consequently, subcortical nuclei have scarcely been discussed in this context. However, subcortical auditory nuclei receive massive, heterogeneous, and cascading descending projections at every level of the sensory hierarchy, and activation of these systems has been shown to improve speech recognition. It is not yet clear whether or how top-down modulation to resolve ambiguous sounds calls upon these corticofugal projections. Here, we review the literature on top-down modulation in the auditory system, primarily focused on humans and cortical imaging/recording methods, and attempt to relate these findings to a growing animal literature, which has primarily been focused on corticofugal projections. We argue that corticofugal pathways contain the requisite circuitry to implement predictive coding mechanisms to facilitate perception of complex sounds and that top-down modulation at early (i.e., subcortical) stages of processing complement modulation at later (i.e., cortical) stages of processing. Finally, we suggest experimental approaches for future studies on this topic.

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Section: Evidence That Auditory Corticofugal Systems Engage In Predictive Codingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Top-Down Inference in the Auditory System: Potential Roles for Corticofugal Projections

Asilador

Llano

2021

Front. Neural Circuits

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“…The auditory corticothalamic system is massive, develops early, prior to hearing onset (Torii et al, 2013), elicits responses in the majority of MGB neurons (Ryugo and Weinberger, 1976;Villa et al, 1991;He et al, 2002) that are strong enough to induce immediate-early gene expression (Guo et al, 2007;Sun et al, 2007), produces both short (2 ms) and long (hundreds of ms) latency responses (Serkov et al, 1976) and elicits both excitation (the dominant response in the lemniscal ventral subdivision) and inhibition (likely mediated via the thalamic reticular nucleus) (Amato et al, 1969;He, 1997;He et al, 2002;He, 2003b;Xiong et al, 2004;Yu et al, 2004;. Activation of corticothalamic fibers can adjust tuning and sensitivity of auditory thalamic neurons (Guo et al, 2017) and appears to be critical for performance in perceptually-challenging tasks (Happel et al, 2014;Homma et al, 2017), as well as for directing plastic changes that occur in the thalamus (Zhang and Yan, 2008;Nelson et al, 2015). Importantly from the predictive coding perspective, corticothalamic projections appear to be organized topographically (Takayanagi and Ojima, 2006), such that cortical and thalamic areas that are matched for best frequency tend to produce corticothalamic excitation, while those that are unmatched tend to produce inhibition (He, 1997;He et al, 2002).…”

Section: Evidence That Auditory Corticofugal Systems Engage In Predicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Top-down inference in the auditory system: Potential roles for corticofugal projections

Asilador¹,

Llano²

2020

Preprint

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It has become widely accepted that humans use contextual information to infer the meaning of ambiguous acoustic signals. In speech, for example, high-level semantic, syntactic or lexical information shape our understanding of a phoneme buried in noise. Most current theories to explain this phenomenon rely on hierarchical predictive coding models involving a set of Bayesian priors emanating from high-level brain regions (e.g., prefrontal cortex) that are used to influence processing at lower-levels of the sensory hierarchy (e.g., auditory cortex). As such, virtually all proposed models to explain top-down facilitation are focused on the cerebral cortex, and consequently subcortical nuclei have scarcely been discussed in this context. However, subcortical auditory nuclei receive massive, heterogeneous and cascading descending projections at every level of the sensory hierarchy, and activation of these systems has been shown to improve speech recognition. It is not yet clear whether or how top-down modulation to resolve ambiguous sounds calls upon these corticofugal projections. Here, we review the literature on top-down modulation in the auditory system, primarily focused on humans and cortical imaging/recording methods, and attempt to relate these findings to a growing animal literature, which has primarily been focused on corticofugal projections. We argue that corticofugal pathways contain the requisite circuitry to implement predictive coding mechanisms to facilitate perception of complex sounds and that top-down modulation at early stages of processing complements modulation at later (i.e., cortical) stages of processing. Finally, we suggest experimental approaches for future studies on this topic.

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“…Cortical focal electric stimulation has been shown to induce both types of changes in MGBv of bats (Zhang and Suga, 2000;Tang et al, 2012). Similar changes are also induced in MGBv by electrical stimulation of the cholinergic nucleus basalis or by behavioral conditioning, and are abolished with inactivation of the auditory cortex (guinea pigs: Edeline and Weinberger, 1991;bats: Zhang et al, 1997;mice: Zhang and Yan, 2008;Luo et al, 2011;Nelson et al, 2015). This suggests that the effects on subcortical activity are controlled by the balance of local excitation and inhibition including the influence of various neuromodulators.…”

Section: Changes In Spectral Tuningmentioning

confidence: 95%

Lemniscal Corticothalamic Feedback in Auditory Scene Analysis

Homma

Bajo

2021

Front. Neurosci.

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Sound information is transmitted from the ear to central auditory stations of the brain via several nuclei. In addition to these ascending pathways there exist descending projections that can influence the information processing at each of these nuclei. A major descending pathway in the auditory system is the feedback projection from layer VI of the primary auditory cortex (A1) to the ventral division of medial geniculate body (MGBv) in the thalamus. The corticothalamic axons have small glutamatergic terminals that can modulate thalamic processing and thalamocortical information transmission. Corticothalamic neurons also provide input to GABAergic neurons of the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) that receives collaterals from the ascending thalamic axons. The balance of corticothalamic and TRN inputs has been shown to refine frequency tuning, firing patterns, and gating of MGBv neurons. Therefore, the thalamus is not merely a relay stage in the chain of auditory nuclei but does participate in complex aspects of sound processing that include top-down modulations. In this review, we aim (i) to examine how lemniscal corticothalamic feedback modulates responses in MGBv neurons, and (ii) to explore how the feedback contributes to auditory scene analysis, particularly on frequency and harmonic perception. Finally, we will discuss potential implications of the role of corticothalamic feedback in music and speech perception, where precise spectral and temporal processing is essential.

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Auditory cortex directs the input-specific remodeling of thalamus

Cited by 9 publications

References 41 publications

Top-Down Inference in the Auditory System: Potential Roles for Corticofugal Projections

Top-Down Inference in the Auditory System: Potential Roles for Corticofugal Projections

Top-down inference in the auditory system: Potential roles for corticofugal projections

Lemniscal Corticothalamic Feedback in Auditory Scene Analysis

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