Over-representation of species-specific vocalizations in the awake mouse inferior colliculus

Portfors, Christine V.; Roberts, Patrick D.; Jonson, K.

doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2009.04.056

Cited by 83 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It has been previously reported that mouse IC neurons show robust responses to mouse vocalizations, even when the vocalization frequencies are substantially higher than the preferred frequency range of a neuron (Portfors et al 2009). Unlike the mouse system, in this study, only UVF neurons in rat AI respond to ultrasonic vocalization (Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…In several species, auditory neurons are more selective for vocalizations or acoustic stimuli that match the spectrotemporal modulations of species-specific vocalizations and other natural stimuli (Garcia-Lazaro et al 2006;Lewicki 2002;Portfors et al 2009;Rieke et al 1995;Wang and Kadia 2001). In rodents, socially relevant ultrasonic vocalizations occur in the ultrasonic vocalization frequency (UVF) range Ͼ30 kHz (Brudzynski et al 1993(Brudzynski et al , 1999Portfors 2007;Takahashi et al 2010), and evidence suggests that the UVF range is overrepresented in rat primary auditory cortex (AI; Kim and Bao 2009).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Experience-dependent overrepresentation of ultrasonic vocalization frequencies in the rat primary auditory cortex

Kim

Bao

2013

Journal of Neurophysiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Kim H, Bao S. Experience-dependent overrepresentation of ultrasonic vocalization frequencies in the rat primary auditory cortex. J Neurophysiol 110: 1087-1096. First published June 5, 2013 doi:10.1152/jn.00230.2013.-Cortical sensory representation is highly adaptive to the environment, and prevalent or behaviorally important stimuli are often overrepresented. One class of such stimuli is speciesspecific vocalizations. Rats vocalize in the ultrasonic range Ͼ30 kHz, but cortical representation of this frequency range has not been systematically examined. We recorded in vivo cortical electrophysiological responses to ultrasonic pure-tone pips, natural ultrasonic vocalizations, and pitch-shifted vocalizations to assess how rats represent this ethologically relevant frequency range. We find that nearly 40% of the primary auditory cortex (AI) represents an octave-wide band of ultrasonic vocalization frequencies (UVFs; 32-64 kHz) compared with Ͻ20% for other octave bands Ͻ32 kHz. These UVF neurons respond preferentially and reliably to ultrasonic vocalizations. The UVF overrepresentation matures in the cortex before it develops in the central nucleus of inferior colliculus, suggesting a cortical origin and corticofugal influences. Furthermore, the development of cortical UVF overrepresentation depends on early acoustic experience. These results indicate that natural sensory experience causes large-scale cortical map reorganization and improves representations of species-specific vocalizations.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Experience-dependent overrepresentation of ultrasonic vocalization frequencies in the rat primary auditory cortex

Kim

Bao

2013

Journal of Neurophysiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The distortion product with the highest intensity generated through this mechanism ( f 2 Ϫ f 1 ) falls within the FRA of this neuron, perhaps causing its response. Neural sensitivity to cochlear distortion products has been documented previously throughout the auditory system (Goldstein and Kiang, 1968;McAlpine, 2004;Abel and Kössl, 2009;Portfors et al, 2009) and has been proposed as a mechanism for providing sensory cues in communication Warren et al, 2009). …”

Section: Changing the Spectral Content Of Vocalizations Altered Neuramentioning

confidence: 96%

Efficient Encoding of Vocalizations in the Auditory Midbrain

Holmstrom¹,

Eeuwes²,

Roberts³

et al. 2010

J. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An important question in sensory neuroscience is what coding strategies and mechanisms are used by the brain to detect and discriminate among behaviorally relevant stimuli. There is evidence that sensory systems migrate from a distributed and redundant encoding strategy at the periphery to a more heterogeneous encoding in cortical structures. It has been hypothesized that heterogeneity is an efficient encoding strategy that minimizes the redundancy of the neural code and maximizes information throughput. Evidence of this mechanism has been documented in cortical structures. In this study, we examined whether heterogeneous encoding of complex sounds contributes to efficient encoding in the auditory midbrain by characterizing neural responses to behaviorally relevant vocalizations in the mouse inferior colliculus (IC). We independently manipulated the frequency, amplitude, duration, and harmonic structure of the vocalizations to create a suite of modified vocalizations. Based on measures of both spike rate and timing, we characterized the heterogeneity of neural responses to the natural vocalizations and their perturbed variants. Using information theoretic measures, we found that heterogeneous response properties of IC neurons contribute to efficient encoding of behaviorally relevant vocalizations.

show abstract

“…sustained, adapting, and onset-bursting, Xie et al, 2008), and unique temporal responses and directional selectivity for frequency modulated (FM) sweeps (Andoni et al, 2007;Pollak et al, 2011). These feature-specific responses in the IC are also observed at higher levels of complexity, for example in terms of overrepresentation of species-specific vocalisations (Portfors et al, 2009). Further indication that the IC plays a central role in linking sonic features of vocalisations with behaviourally relevant affective meaning comes from evidence of innervation and modulation of IC responses by serotonin (Thompson et al, 1994;Hurley and Pollak, 1999;Hurley and Thompson, 2001;Hurley et al, 2002), a neurotransmitter known for its involvement in social interaction.…”

Section: Inferior Colliculusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite inter-individual differences, the converging evidence (reviewed above) indicates that neurons in the subcortical pathway e especially in IC and MGB e respond selectively to features in vocalisations (e.g. Wenstrup, 1999;Marsh et al, 2006;Holmstrom et al, 2007;Portfors et al, 2009;Pollak, 2011Pollak, , 2012, and that some of these features (e.g. frequency modulation, Andoni andPollak 2007, Pollak et al, 2011) are known to affect the meaning of vocalisations by signalling affective or emotional states.…”

Section: Towards a Subcortical Model For Emotional Auditory Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subcortical processing in auditory communication

2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c tThe voice is a rich source of information, which the human brain has evolved to decode and interpret. Empirical observations have shown that the human auditory system is especially sensitive to the human voice, and that activity within the voice-sensitive regions of the primary and secondary auditory cortex is modulated by the emotional quality of the vocal signal, and may therefore subserve, with frontal regions, the cognitive ability to correctly identify the speaker's affective state. So far, the network involved in the processing of vocal affect has been mainly characterised at the cortical level. However, anatomical and functional evidence suggests that acoustic information relevant to the affective quality of the auditory signal might be processed prior to the auditory cortex.Here we review the animal and human literature on the main subcortical structures along the auditory pathway, and propose a model whereby the distinction between different types of vocal affect in auditory communication begins at very early stages of auditory processing, and relies on the analysis of individual acoustic features of the sound signal. We further suggest that this early feature-based decoding occurs at a subcortical level along the ascending auditory pathway, and provides a preliminary coarse (but fast) characterisation of the affective quality of the auditory signal before the more refined (but slower) cortical processing is completed.

show abstract

Over-representation of species-specific vocalizations in the awake mouse inferior colliculus

Cited by 83 publications

References 37 publications

Experience-dependent overrepresentation of ultrasonic vocalization frequencies in the rat primary auditory cortex

Experience-dependent overrepresentation of ultrasonic vocalization frequencies in the rat primary auditory cortex

Efficient Encoding of Vocalizations in the Auditory Midbrain

Subcortical processing in auditory communication

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About