Component analysis reveals sharp tuning of the local field potential in the guinea pig auditory cortex

2013 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 261-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain de Cheveigné ◽  
Jean-Marc Edeline ◽  
Quentin Gaucher ◽  
Boris Gourévitch
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Local Field ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Field Potential ◽  
Component Analysis ◽  
Electrode Arrays ◽  
Linear Combinations ◽  
Spectrotemporal Receptive Fields ◽  
Analysis Technique ◽  
Channel Electrode

Local field potentials (LFPs) recorded in the auditory cortex of mammals are known to reveal weakly selective and often multimodal spectrotemporal receptive fields in contrast to spiking activity. This may in part reflect the wider “listening sphere” of LFPs relative to spikes due to the greater current spread at low than high frequencies. We recorded LFPs and spikes from auditory cortex of guinea pigs using 16-channel electrode arrays. LFPs were processed by a component analysis technique that produces optimally tuned linear combinations of electrode signals. Linear combinations of LFPs were found to have sharply tuned responses, closer to spike-related tuning. The existence of a sharply tuned component implies that a cortical neuron (or group of neurons) capable of forming a linear combination of its inputs has access to that information. Linear combinations of signals from electrode arrays reveal information latent in the subspace spanned by multichannel LFP recordings and are justified by the fact that the observations themselves are linear combinations of neural sources.

scholarly journals Increased neural correlations in primate auditory cortex during slow-wave sleep

2013 ◽  
Vol 109 (11) ◽  
pp. 2732-2738 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elias B. Issa ◽  
Xiaoqin Wang
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Spontaneous Activity ◽  
Slow Wave ◽  
Local Field ◽  
Local Field Potential ◽  
Slow Wave Sleep ◽  
Field Potential ◽  
Sensory Stimulation ◽  
Acoustic Stimulation ◽  
Functional Connections

During sleep, changes in brain rhythms and neuromodulator levels in cortex modify the properties of individual neurons and the network as a whole. In principle, network-level interactions during sleep can be studied by observing covariation in spontaneous activity between neurons. Spontaneous activity, however, reflects only a portion of the effective functional connectivity that is activated by external and internal inputs (e.g., sensory stimulation, motor behavior, and mental activity), and it has been shown that neural responses are less correlated during external sensory stimulation than during spontaneous activity. Here, we took advantage of the unique property that the auditory cortex continues to respond to sounds during sleep and used external acoustic stimuli to activate cortical networks for studying neural interactions during sleep. We found that during slow-wave sleep (SWS), local (neuron-neuron) correlations are not reduced by acoustic stimulation remaining higher than in wakefulness and rapid eye movement sleep and remaining similar to spontaneous activity correlations. This high level of correlations during SWS complements previous work finding elevated global (local field potential-local field potential) correlations during sleep. Contrary to the prediction that slow oscillations in SWS would increase neural correlations during spontaneous activity, we found little change in neural correlations outside of periods of acoustic stimulation. Rather, these findings suggest that functional connections recruited in sound processing are modified during SWS and that slow rhythms, which in general are suppressed by sensory stimulation, are not the sole mechanism leading to elevated network correlations during sleep.

Properties of Correlated Neural Activity Clusters in Cat Auditory Cortex Resemble Those of Neural Assemblies

2006 ◽  
Vol 96 (2) ◽  
pp. 746-764 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jos J. Eggermont
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Spike Activity ◽  
Correlation Matrix ◽  
Cross Correlation ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Simultaneous Recording ◽  
Electrode Arrays ◽  
Tone Stimulus ◽  
Neural Assemblies

Spiking activity was recorded from cat auditory cortex using multi-electrode arrays. Cross-correlograms were calculated for spikes recorded on separate microelectrodes. The pair-wise cross-correlation matrix was constructed for the peak values of the correlograms. Hierarchical clustering was performed on the cross-correlation matrix for six stimulus conditions. These were silence, three multi-tone stimulus ensembles with different spectral densities, low-pass amplitude-modulated noise, and Poisson-distributed click trains that each lasted 15 min. The resulting neuron clusters reflect patches in cortex of up to several mm2 in size that expand and contract in response to different stimuli. Cluster positions and size were very similar for spontaneous activity and multi-tone stimulus-evoked activity but differed between those conditions and the noise and click stimuli. Cluster size was significantly larger in posterior auditory field (PAF) compared with primary auditory cortex (AI), whereas the fraction of common spikes (within a 10-ms window) across all electrode activity participating in a cluster was significantly higher in AI compared with PAF. Clusters crossed area boundaries in <5% of the cases were simultaneous recording were made in AI and PAF. Clusters are therefore similar to but not synonymous with the traditional view of neural assemblies. Common-spike spectrotemporal receptive fields (STRFs) were obtained for common-spike activity and all-spike activity within a cluster. Common-spike STRFs had higher signal-to-noise ratio than all-spike STRFs and showed generally spectral and temporal sharpening. The coincident and noncoincident output of the clusters could potentially act in parallel and may serve different modes of stimulus coding.

Spectrotemporal Structure of Receptive Fields in Areas AI and AAF of Mouse Auditory Cortex

2003 ◽  
Vol 90 (4) ◽  
pp. 2660-2675 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer F. Linden ◽  
Robert C. Liu ◽  
Maneesh Sahani ◽  
Christoph E. Schreiner ◽  
Michael M. Merzenich
Keyword(s):  
Receptive Field ◽  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Dynamic Stimuli ◽  
Tuning Curves ◽  
Response Characteristics ◽  
Spectrotemporal Receptive Fields ◽  
Auditory Field ◽  
Tonal Stimuli

The mouse is a promising model system for auditory cortex research because of the powerful genetic tools available for manipulating its neural circuitry. Previous studies have identified two tonotopic auditory areas in the mouse—primary auditory cortex (AI) and anterior auditory field (AAF)— but auditory receptive fields in these areas have not yet been described. To establish a foundation for investigating auditory cortical circuitry and plasticity in the mouse, we characterized receptive-field structure in AI and AAF of anesthetized mice using spectrally complex and temporally dynamic stimuli as well as simple tonal stimuli. Spectrotemporal receptive fields (STRFs) were derived from extracellularly recorded responses to complex stimuli, and frequency-intensity tuning curves were constructed from responses to simple tonal stimuli. Both analyses revealed temporal differences between AI and AAF responses: peak latencies and receptive-field durations for STRFs and first-spike latencies for responses to tone bursts were significantly longer in AI than in AAF. Spectral properties of AI and AAF receptive fields were more similar, although STRF bandwidths were slightly broader in AI than in AAF. Finally, in both AI and AAF, a substantial minority of STRFs were spectrotemporally inseparable. The spectrotemporal interaction typically appeared in the form of clearly disjoint excitatory and inhibitory subfields or an obvious spectrotemporal slant in the STRF. These data provide the first detailed description of auditory receptive fields in the mouse and suggest that although neurons in areas AI and AAF share many response characteristics, area AAF may be specialized for faster temporal processing.

scholarly journals Mapping the human auditory cortex using spectrotemporal receptive fields generated with magnetoencephalography

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Pierre R. Falet ◽  
Jonathan Côté ◽  
Veronica Tarka ◽  
Zaida-Escila Martinez-Moreno ◽  
Patrice Voss ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Functional Organization ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Spectrotemporal Receptive Fields ◽  
Modulation Rate ◽  
Human Auditory Cortex ◽  
Time Required

AbstractWe present a novel method to map the functional organization of the human auditory cortex noninvasively using magnetoencephalography (MEG). More specifically, this method estimates via reverse correlation the spectrotemporal receptive fields (STRF) in response to a dense pure tone stimulus, from which important spectrotemporal characteristics of neuronal processing can be extracted and mapped back onto the cortex surface. We show that several neuronal populations can be found examining the spectrotemporal characteristics of their STRFs, and demonstrate how these can be used to generate tonotopic gradient maps. In doing so, we show that the spatial resolution of MEG is sufficient to reliably extract important information about the spatial organization of the auditory cortex, while enabling the analysis of complex temporal dynamics of auditory processing such as best temporal modulation rate and response latency given its excellent temporal resolution. Furthermore, because spectrotemporally dense auditory stimuli can be used with MEG, the time required to acquire the necessary data to generate tonotopic maps is significantly less for MEG than for other neuroimaging tools that acquire BOLD-like signals.

Frequency-Modulation Encoding in the Primary Auditory Cortex of the Awake Owl Monkey

2007 ◽  
Vol 98 (4) ◽  
pp. 2182-2195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig A. Atencio ◽  
David T. Blake ◽  
Fabrizio Strata ◽  
Steven W. Cheung ◽  
Michael M. Merzenich ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
World Monkey ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Direction Selectivity ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Population Distributions ◽  
Spectrotemporal Receptive Fields ◽  
Owl Monkey ◽  
Highly Correlated

Many communication sounds, such as New World monkey twitter calls, contain frequency-modulated (FM) sweeps. To determine how this prominent vocalization element is represented in the auditory cortex we examined neural responses to logarithmic FM sweep stimuli in the primary auditory cortex (AI) of two awake owl monkeys. Using an implanted array of microelectrodes we quantitatively characterized neuronal responses to FM sweeps and to random tone-pip stimuli. Tone-pip responses were used to construct spectrotemporal receptive fields (STRFs). Classification of FM sweep responses revealed few neurons with high direction and speed selectivity. Most neurons responded to sweeps in both directions and over a broad range of sweep speeds. Characteristic frequency estimates from FM responses were highly correlated with estimates from STRFs, although spectral receptive field bandwidth was consistently underestimated by FM stimuli. Predictions of FM direction selectivity and best speed from STRFs were significantly correlated with observed FM responses, although some systematic discrepancies existed. Last, the population distributions of FM responses in the awake owl monkey were similar to, although of longer temporal duration than, those in the anesthetized squirrel monkeys.

scholarly journals Hierarchy of speech-driven spectrotemporal receptive fields in human auditory cortex

NeuroImage ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 186 ◽  
pp. 647-666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan H. Venezia ◽  
Steven M. Thurman ◽  
Virginia M. Richards ◽  
Gregory Hickok
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Spectrotemporal Receptive Fields ◽  
Human Auditory Cortex

scholarly journals Laminar Diversity of Dynamic Sound Processing in Cat Primary Auditory Cortex

2010 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 192-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig A. Atencio ◽  
Christoph E. Schreiner
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Transfer Functions ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Functional Characteristic ◽  
Modulation Transfer ◽  
Spectral Modulation ◽  
Spectrotemporal Receptive Fields ◽  
Low Pass ◽  
Acoustic Modulation

For primary auditory cortex (AI) laminae, there is little evidence of functional specificity despite clearly expressed cellular and connectional differences. Natural sounds are dominated by dynamic temporal and spectral modulations and we used these properties to evaluate local functional differences or constancies across laminae. To examine the layer-specific processing of acoustic modulation information, we simultaneously recorded from multiple AI laminae in the anesthetized cat. Neurons were challenged with dynamic moving ripple stimuli and we subsequently computed spectrotemporal receptive fields (STRFs). From the STRFs, temporal and spectral modulation transfer functions (tMTFs, sMTFs) were calculated and compared across layers. Temporal and spectral modulation properties often differed between layers. On average, layer II/III and VI neurons responded to lower temporal modulations than those in layer IV. tMTFs were mainly band-pass in granular layer IV and became more low-pass in infragranular layers. Compared with layer IV, spectral MTFs were broader and their upper cutoff frequencies higher in layers V and VI. In individual penetrations, temporal modulation preference was similar across layers for roughly 70% of the penetrations, suggesting a common, columnar functional characteristic. By contrast, only about 30% of penetrations showed consistent spectral modulation preferences across layers, indicative of functional laminar diversity or specialization. Since local laminar differences in stimulus preference do not always parallel the main flow of information in the columnar cortical microcircuit, this indicates the influence of additional horizontal or thalamocortical inputs. AI layers that express differing modulation properties may serve distinct roles in the extraction of dynamic sound information, with the differing information specific to the targeted stations of each layer.

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