Robustness of cortical and subcortical processing in the presence of natural masking sounds

Beetz, M. Jerome; García‐Rosales, Francisco; Kössl, Manfred; Hechavarría, Julio C.

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-25241-x

Cited by 14 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 65 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Understanding the neural mechanisms used by the central auditory system to extract and represent relevant information for discriminating communication sounds in a variety of acoustic environments is a major goal of auditory neurosciences. This enterprise is motivated by the repeated observation that humans and animals successfully maintain high discrimination performance for speech and behaviorally salient calls when the latter are embedded into loud sources of background noise produced by environmental medium (such as tropical forests, underwater or urban environments) 1-6 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cortical and subcortical neurons discriminate sounds in noise on the sole basis of acoustic amplitude modulations

Souffi

Lorenzi

Huetz

et al. 2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

30Humans and animals maintain accurate sound discrimination in the presence of loud sources 31 of background noise. It is commonly assumed that this ability relies on the robustness of 32 auditory cortex responses. However, no attempt has been made to characterize neural 33 discrimination of sounds masked by noise at each stage of the auditory system and 34 disentangle the sub-effects of noise, namely the distortion of temporal cues conveyed by 35 modulations in instantaneous amplitude and frequency, and the introduction of randomness 36 (stochastic fluctuations in amplitude). Here, we measured neural discrimination between 37 communication sounds masked by steady noise in the cochlear nucleus, inferior colliculus, 38 auditory thalamus, primary and secondary auditory cortex at several signal-to-noise ratios. 39Sound discrimination by neuronal populations markedly decreased in each auditory structure, 40 but collicular and thalamic populations showed better performance than cortical populations 41 at each signal-to-noise ratio. Comparison with neural responses to tone-vocoded sounds 42 revealed that the reduction in neural discrimination caused by noise was mainly driven by the 43 attenuation of slow amplitude modulation cues, with the exception of the cochlear nucleus 44 that showed a dramatic drop in discrimination caused by the randomness of noise. These 45 results shed new light on the specific contributions of subcortical structures to robust sound 46 encoding, and demonstrate that neural discrimination in the presence of background noise is 47 mainly determined by the distortion of the slow temporal cues conveyed by communication 48 sounds. 49 50 51 52Acknowledgments: 53 CL and JME were supported by grants from the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche 54 (ANR) (ANR-14-CE30-0019-01). CL was also supported by grants ANR-11-0001-02 PSL 55and ANR-10-LABX-0087. SS was supported by the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale 56 (FRM) grant number ECO20160736099. 57We thank warmly Léo Varnet for help in analyzing the modulation spectra of the acoustic 58 stimuli and Roger Mundry for detailed and relevant comments on statistical analyses. We 59 thank Nihaad Paraouty for training us to cochlear-nucleus surgery. We also wish to thank 60Mélanie Dumont, Aurélie Bonilla and Céline Dubois for taking care of the guinea-pig colony. Introduction 68Understanding the neural mechanisms used by the central auditory system to extract and 69 represent relevant information for discriminating communication sounds in a variety of 70 acoustic environments is a major goal of auditory neurosciences. This enterprise is motivated 71 by the repeated observation that humans and animals successfully maintain high 72 discrimination performance for speech and behaviorally salient calls when the latter are 73 embedded into loud sources of background noise produced by environmental medium (such 74 as tropical forests, underwater or urban environments) 1-6 . 75Previous studies have assumed that this perceptual robustness mainly relies on the capa...

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cortical and subcortical neurons discriminate sounds in noise on the sole basis of acoustic amplitude modulations

Souffi

Lorenzi

Huetz

et al. 2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Vocalization-based interactions between broadcaster and receiver play an important role in everyday life scenarios and are highly conserved throughout the animal kingdom 1,2 . Although neural mechanisms involved in auditory processing and perception have been extensively researched [3][4][5] , studies addressing subcortico-cortical network activity leading to vocal motor outputs remain sparse.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our findings confirmed this hypothesis and indicate that distinct brain rhythms shape the bats' vocal output. These rhythms encompass inter-areal coupling in the theta band (4)(5)(6)(7)(8) and specialized intra-areal processing mechanisms in the gamma Hz) and beta (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30) Hz) bands of the local field potentials (LFP). Overall, our results present evidence for fronto-striatal network oscillations in motor action prediction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fronto-striatal oscillations predict vocal output in bats

Weineck

García‐Rosales

Hechavarría

2019

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abbreviations AUC: area under the curve; BF: best frequency; CN: caudate nucleus; d: Cliff's Delta; dVS: difference in vector strength, FAF: frontal auditory field; IQR: inter-quartile range; LFP: local field potential; Med: median; PFC: prefrontal cortex; PSTH: peri-stimulus time histogram; SVM: support vector machine; VS: vector strength SummaryThe ability to vocalize is ubiquitous in vertebrates, but neural networks leading to vocalization production remain poorly understood. Here we performed simultaneous, large scale, neuronal recordings in the frontal cortex and dorsal striatum (caudate nucleus) during the production of echolocation and non-echolocation calls in bats. This approach allows to assess the general aspects underlying vocalization production in mammals and the unique evolutionary adaptations of bat echolocation. Our findings show that distinct intra-areal brain rhythms in the beta (12-30 Hz) and gamma (30-80 Hz) bands of the local field potential can be used to predict the bats' vocal output and that phase locking between spikes and field potentials occurs prior vocalization production. Moreover, the fronto-striatal network is differentially coupled in the theta-band during the production of echolocation and nonecholocation calls. Overall, our results present evidence for fronto-striatal network oscillations in motor action prediction in mammals.

show abstract

“…Results from insectivorous bats led to the hypothesis that the emission of call groups may represent an adaptation to orient in complex environments (Falk et al, 2014; Fawcett et al, 2015; Kothari et al, 2014; Moss et al, 2006; Petrites et al, 2009; Sändig et al, 2014; Surlykke et al, 2009). Frugivorous bats emit more and larger call groups when orienting in the presence than in the absence of acoustic playbacks (Beetz et al, 2018; Luo et al, 2015). Acoustic playbacks potentially interfere with the bat’s echolocation system making echolocation highly demanding.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Acoustic playbacks potentially interfere with the bat’s echolocation system making echolocation highly demanding. Thus, for frugivorous bats, it has been proposed that the call groups may represent an adaptation to avoid signal interference (Beetz et al, 2018). However, it remains unknown if frugivorous bats show similar adaptations when orienting in narrow-spaced or cluttered environments as it has been shown for insectivorous bats.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptations in the echolocation behavior of fruit-eating bats when orienting under challenging conditions

Beetz

Kössl

Hechavarría

2018

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

statement 24When echolocating under demanding conditions e.g. noisy, narrow space, or cluttered environments, 25 frugivorous bats adapt their call pattern by increasing the call rate within biosonar groups. 26 Abstract 27For orientation, echolocating bats emit biosonar calls and use echoes arising from call reflections. 28They often pattern their calls into groups which increases the rate of sensory feedback over time. 29Insectivorous bats emit call groups at a higher rate when orienting in cluttered compared to uncluttered 30 environments. Frugivorous bats increase the rate of call group emission when they echolocate in noisy 31 environments. Here, calls emitted by conspecifics potentially interfere with the bat's biosonar signals 32 and complicate the echolocation behavior. To minimize the information loss followed by signal 33 interference, bats may profit from a temporally increased sensory acquisition rate, as it is the case for 34 the call groups. In frugivorous bats, it remains unclear if call group emission represents an exclusive 35 adaptation to avoid interference by signals from other bats or if it represents an adaptation that allows 36to orient under demanding environmental conditions. Here, we compared the emission pattern of the 37 frugivorous bat Carollia perspicillata when the bats were flying in noisy versus silent, narrow versus 38 wide or cluttered versus non-cluttered corridors. According to our results, the bats emitted larger call 39 groups and they increased the call rate within the call groups when navigating in narrow, cluttered, or 40 noisy environments. Thus, call group emission represents an adaptive behavior when the bats orient in 41 complex environments. 42 43 orientation 45 259 260 Amichai, E., Blumrosen, G. and Yovel, Y. (2015). Calling louder and longer: how bats use 261 biosonar under severe acoustic interference from other bats.

show abstract

Robustness of cortical and subcortical processing in the presence of natural masking sounds

Cited by 14 publications

References 65 publications

Cortical and subcortical neurons discriminate sounds in noise on the sole basis of acoustic amplitude modulations

Cortical and subcortical neurons discriminate sounds in noise on the sole basis of acoustic amplitude modulations

Fronto-striatal oscillations predict vocal output in bats

Adaptations in the echolocation behavior of fruit-eating bats when orienting under challenging conditions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About