Task engagement improves neural discriminability in the auditory midbrain of the marmoset monkey

Luke A. Shaheen; Sean J. Slee; Stephen V. David

doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1112-20.2020

Task engagement improves neural discriminability in the auditory midbrain of the marmoset monkey

Luke A. Shaheen
, Sean J. Slee
, Stephen V. David

Otolaryngology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

While task-dependent changes have been demonstrated in auditory cortex for a number of behavioral paradigms and mammalian species, less is known about how behavioral state can influence neural coding in the midbrain areas that provide auditory information to cortex. We measured single-unit activity in the inferior colliculus (IC) of common marmosets of both sexes while they performed a tone-in-noise detection task and during passive presentation of identical task stimuli. In contrast to our previous study in the ferret IC, task engagement had little effect on sound-evoked activity in central (lemniscal) IC of the marmoset. However, activity was significantly modulated in noncentral fields, where responses were selectively enhanced for the target tone relative to the distractor noise. This led to an increase in neural discriminability between target and distractors. The results confirm that task engagement can modulate sound coding in the auditory midbrain, and support a hypothesis that subcortical pathways can mediate highly trained auditory behaviors.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	284-297
Number of pages	14
Journal	Journal of Neuroscience
Volume	41
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1112-20.2020
State	Published - Jan 13 2021

Funding

Received May 7, 2020; revised Oct. 24, 2020; accepted Oct. 27, 2020. Author contributions: L.A.S. and S.J.S. performed research; L.A.S., S.J.S., and S.V.D. analyzed data; L.A.S. and S.J.S. wrote the first draft of the paper; L.A.S., S.J.S., and S.V.D. edited the paper; L.A.S. and S.J.S. wrote the paper; S.J.S. and S.V.D. designed research. The authors declare no competing financial interests. This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grant DC010439 to S.V.D. and Grant DC012124 to S.J.S. We thank Henry Cooney for technical support and assistance with animal care; and Brian Jones for assistance with electrophysiology. Correspondence should be addressed to Luke A. Shaheen at [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1112-20.2020 Copyright © 2021 the authors

Funders

Funder number

Author National Institutes of Health National Institutes of Health National Institutes of Health National Institutes of Health The Bev Hartig Huntington's Disease Foundation National Institutes of Health

DC010439

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders R01DC012546 Xue Zhong Liu National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders R01DC012115 Xue Zhong Liu National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders R01DC014427 Ulrich Müller Peter G Barr-Gillespie National Institute on Deafnessand Other Communication Disorders R01DC005965 Ulrich Müller National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders

R03DC012124

Keywords

Auditory discrimination
Inferior Colliculus
Subcortical plasticity

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Neuroscience

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10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1112-20.2020

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title = "Task engagement improves neural discriminability in the auditory midbrain of the marmoset monkey",

abstract = "While task-dependent changes have been demonstrated in auditory cortex for a number of behavioral paradigms and mammalian species, less is known about how behavioral state can influence neural coding in the midbrain areas that provide auditory information to cortex. We measured single-unit activity in the inferior colliculus (IC) of common marmosets of both sexes while they performed a tone-in-noise detection task and during passive presentation of identical task stimuli. In contrast to our previous study in the ferret IC, task engagement had little effect on sound-evoked activity in central (lemniscal) IC of the marmoset. However, activity was significantly modulated in noncentral fields, where responses were selectively enhanced for the target tone relative to the distractor noise. This led to an increase in neural discriminability between target and distractors. The results confirm that task engagement can modulate sound coding in the auditory midbrain, and support a hypothesis that subcortical pathways can mediate highly trained auditory behaviors.",

keywords = "Auditory discrimination, Inferior Colliculus, Subcortical plasticity",

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N2 - While task-dependent changes have been demonstrated in auditory cortex for a number of behavioral paradigms and mammalian species, less is known about how behavioral state can influence neural coding in the midbrain areas that provide auditory information to cortex. We measured single-unit activity in the inferior colliculus (IC) of common marmosets of both sexes while they performed a tone-in-noise detection task and during passive presentation of identical task stimuli. In contrast to our previous study in the ferret IC, task engagement had little effect on sound-evoked activity in central (lemniscal) IC of the marmoset. However, activity was significantly modulated in noncentral fields, where responses were selectively enhanced for the target tone relative to the distractor noise. This led to an increase in neural discriminability between target and distractors. The results confirm that task engagement can modulate sound coding in the auditory midbrain, and support a hypothesis that subcortical pathways can mediate highly trained auditory behaviors.

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Task engagement improves neural discriminability in the auditory midbrain of the marmoset monkey

Abstract

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Keywords

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