scholarly journals Behavioral training enhances cortical temporal processing in neonatally deafened juvenile cats

2011 ◽  
Vol 106 (2) ◽  
pp. 944-959 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph E. Beitel ◽  
Maike Vollmer ◽  
Marcia W. Raggio ◽  
Christoph E. Schreiner
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Processing ◽  
Electric Stimulation ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Cochlear Prosthesis ◽  
Behavioral Training ◽  
Stimulus Repetition ◽  
Electric Pulses ◽  
Temporal Cues ◽  
Auditory Experience ◽  
Cutoff Rate

Deaf humans implanted with a cochlear prosthesis depend largely on temporal cues for speech recognition because spectral information processing is severely impaired. Training with a cochlear prosthesis is typically required before speech perception shows improvement, suggesting that relevant experience modifies temporal processing in the central auditory system. We tested this hypothesis in neonatally deafened cats by comparing temporal processing in the primary auditory cortex (AI) of cats that received only chronic passive intracochlear electric stimulation (ICES) with cats that were also trained with ICES to detect temporally challenging trains of electric pulses. After months of chronic passive stimulation and several weeks of detection training in behaviorally trained cats, multineuronal AI responses evoked by temporally modulated ICES were recorded in anesthetized animals. The stimulus repetition rates that produced the maximum number of phase-locked spikes (best repetition rate) and 50% cutoff rate were significantly higher in behaviorally trained cats than the corresponding rates in cats that received only chronic passive ICES. Behavioral training restored neuronal temporal following ability to levels comparable with those recorded in naïve prior normal-hearing adult deafened animals. Importantly, best repetitition rates and cutoff rates were highest for neuronal clusters activated by the electrode configuration used in behavioral training. These results suggest that neuroplasticity in the AI is induced by behavioral training and perceptual learning in animals deprived of ordinary auditory experience during development and indicate that behavioral training can ameliorate or restore temporal processing in the AI of profoundly deaf animals.

scholarly journals Passive stimulation and behavioral training differentially transform temporal processing in the inferior colliculus and primary auditory cortex

2017 ◽  
Vol 117 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maike Vollmer ◽  
Ralph E. Beitel ◽  
Christoph E. Schreiner ◽  
Patricia A. Leake
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Inferior Colliculus ◽  
Temporal Processing ◽  
Electric Stimulation ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Central Nucleus ◽  
Electrophysiological Recording ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Behavioral Training ◽  
Auditory Midbrain

In profoundly deaf cats, behavioral training with intracochlear electric stimulation (ICES) can improve temporal processing in the primary auditory cortex (AI). To investigate whether similar effects are manifest in the auditory midbrain, ICES was initiated in neonatally deafened cats either during development after short durations of deafness (8 wk of age) or in adulthood after long durations of deafness (≥3.5 yr). All of these animals received behaviorally meaningless, “passive” ICES. Some animals also received behavioral training with ICES. Two long-deaf cats received no ICES prior to acute electrophysiological recording. After several months of passive ICES and behavioral training, animals were anesthetized, and neuronal responses to pulse trains of increasing rates were recorded in the central (ICC) and external (ICX) nuclei of the inferior colliculus. Neuronal temporal response patterns (repetition rate coding, minimum latencies, response precision) were compared with results from recordings made in the AI of the same animals (Beitel RE, Vollmer M, Raggio MW, Schreiner CE. J Neurophysiol 106: 944–959, 2011; Vollmer M, Beitel RE. J Neurophysiol 106: 2423–2436, 2011). Passive ICES in long-deaf cats remediated severely degraded temporal processing in the ICC and had no effects in the ICX. In contrast to observations in the AI, behaviorally relevant ICES had no effects on temporal processing in the ICC or ICX, with the single exception of shorter latencies in the ICC in short-deaf cats. The results suggest that independent of deafness duration passive stimulation and behavioral training differentially transform temporal processing in auditory midbrain and cortex, and primary auditory cortex emerges as a pivotal site for behaviorally driven neuronal temporal plasticity in the deaf cat. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Behaviorally relevant vs. passive electric stimulation of the auditory nerve differentially affects neuronal temporal processing in the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus (ICC) and the primary auditory cortex (AI) in profoundly short-deaf and long-deaf cats. Temporal plasticity in the ICC depends on a critical amount of electric stimulation, independent of its behavioral relevance. In contrast, the AI emerges as a pivotal site for behaviorally driven neuronal temporal plasticity in the deaf auditory system.

scholarly journals Behavioral training restores temporal processing in auditory cortex of long-deaf cats

2011 ◽  
Vol 106 (5) ◽  
pp. 2423-2436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maike Vollmer ◽  
Ralph E. Beitel
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Temporal Processing ◽  
Cortical Neurons ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Spike Timing ◽  
Cochlear Prosthesis ◽  
Behavioral Training ◽  
Stimulus Rate ◽  
Spiral Ganglion Cell

Temporal auditory processing is poor in prelingually hearing-impaired patients fitted with cochlear prostheses as adults. In an animal model of prelingual long-term deafness, we investigated the effects of behavioral training on temporal processing in the adult primary auditory cortex (AI). Neuronal responses to pulse trains of increasing frequencies were recorded in three groups of neonatally deafened cats that received a cochlear prosthesis after >3 yr of deafness: 1) acutely implanted animals that received no electric stimulation before study, 2) animals that received chronic-passive stimulation for several weeks to months before study, and 3) animals that received chronic-passive stimulation and additional behavioral training (signal detection). A fourth group of normal adult cats that was deafened acutely and implanted served as controls. The neuronal temporal response parameters of interest included the stimulus rate that evoked the maximum number of phase-locked spikes [best repetition rate (BRR)], the stimulus rate that produced 50% of the spike count at BRR (cutoff rate), the peak-response latency, and the first spike latency and timing-jitter. All long-deaf animals demonstrated a severe reduction in spiral ganglion cell density (mean, <6% of normal). Long-term deafness resulted in a significantly reduced temporal following capacity and spike-timing precision of cortical neurons in all parameters tested. Neurons in deaf animals that received only chronic-passive stimulation showed a gain in BRR but otherwise were similar to deaf cats that received no stimulation. In contrast, training with behaviorally relevant stimulation significantly enhanced all temporal processing parameters to normal levels with the exception of minimum latencies. These results demonstrate the high efficacy of learning-based remodeling of fundamental timing properties in cortical processing even in the adult, long-deaf auditory system, suggesting rehabilitative strategies for patients with long-term hearing loss.

scholarly journals The development of auditory temporal processing during the first year of life

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurianne Cabrera ◽  
Bonnie K. Lau
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Processing ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Temporal Information ◽  
First Year ◽  
Auditory Temporal Processing ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Temporal Cues ◽  
Neurophysiological Studies ◽  
Psychophysical Studies ◽  
First Year Of Life

The processing of auditory temporal information is important for the extraction of voice pitch, linguistic information, as well as the overall temporal structure of speech. However, many aspects regarding its early development remains not well understood. This paper reviews the development of different aspects of auditory temporal processing during the first year of life when infants are acquiring their native language. First, potential mechanisms of neural immaturity are discussed in the context of neurophysiological studies. Next, what is known about infant auditory capabilities is considered with a focus on psychophysical studies involving non-speech stimuli to investigate the perception of temporal fine structure and envelope cues. This is followed by a review of studies involving speech stimuli, including those that present vocoded signals as a method of degrading the spectro-temporal information available to infant listeners. Finally, we highlight key findings from the cochlear implant literature that illustrate the importance of temporal cues in speech perception.

scholarly journals Age-Related Temporal Processing Deficits in Word Segments in Adult Cochlear-Implant Users

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 233121651988668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zilong Xie ◽  
Casey R. Gaskins ◽  
Maureen J. Shader ◽  
Sandra Gordon-Salant ◽  
Samira Anderson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Temporal Processing ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Speech Understanding ◽  
Potential Mechanism ◽  
Auditory Temporal Processing ◽  
Categorization Task ◽  
Performance Differences ◽  
Temporal Cues ◽  
Age Related

Aging may limit speech understanding outcomes in cochlear-implant (CI) users. Here, we examined age-related declines in auditory temporal processing as a potential mechanism that underlies speech understanding deficits associated with aging in CI users. Auditory temporal processing was assessed with a categorization task for the words dish and ditch (i.e., identify each token as the word dish or ditch) on a continuum of speech tokens with varying silence duration (0 to 60 ms) prior to the final fricative. In Experiments 1 and 2, younger CI (YCI), middle-aged CI (MCI), and older CI (OCI) users participated in the categorization task across a range of presentation levels (25 to 85 dB). Relative to YCI, OCI required longer silence durations to identify ditch and exhibited reduced ability to distinguish the words dish and ditch (shallower slopes in the categorization function). Critically, we observed age-related performance differences only at higher presentation levels. This contrasted with findings from normal-hearing listeners in Experiment 3 that demonstrated age-related performance differences independent of presentation level. In summary, aging in CI users appears to degrade the ability to utilize brief temporal cues in word identification, particularly at high levels. Age-specific CI programming may potentially improve clinical outcomes for speech understanding performance by older CI listeners.

Neuronal responses in cat primary auditory cortex to electrical cochlear stimulation. II. Repetition rate coding

1996 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 1283-1300 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. E. Schreiner ◽  
M. W. Raggio
Keyword(s):  
Electrical Stimulation ◽  
Firing Rate ◽  
Repetition Rate ◽  
Cortical Neurons ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Acoustic Stimulation ◽  
Electrode Spacing ◽  
Bipolar Electrode ◽  
Cochlear Prosthesis ◽  
Cutoff Frequencies

1. Responses of neurons in primary auditory cortex (AI) of the barbiturate-anesthetized adult cat were studied using cochlear stimulation with electrical and acoustic stimuli. Neuronal responses to acoustic stimulation with brief biphasic clicks of the ear ipsilateral to the studied cortical hemisphere were compared with those evoked by electrical stimulation of the contralateral cochlea with brief biphasic electrical pulses delivered via a feline cochlear prosthesis. The contralateral ear was deafened immediately before implantation of the cochlear prosthesis. The feline cochlear prosthesis consisted of four bipolar electrode pairs and was placed in the scala tympani. Two bipolar electrode conditions were used for stimulation: one near radial pair with electrode spacing of 0.25-0.5 mm, and one longitudinal pair with electrode spacing of approximately 6 mm. 2. The firing rates obtained from single- and multiple-neuron recordings were measured as a function of stimulus repetition rate of electrical and acoustic pulses. From period histograms over a recording interval of 1,000 ms, the driven firing rate to repetition rates from 2 to 38 Hz was obtained and repetition rate transfer functions (RRTFs) were constructed. The RRTFs were characterized as low-pass or band-pass filters and several descriptors were obtained, such as the repetition rate producing the highest driven activity, high and low cutoff frequencies 6 dB below maximum firing rate, and maximum firing rate. 3. For a given neuron, the main characteristics of cortical RRTFs obtained with electrical and acoustic cochlear stimulation were quite similar. However, some small but statistically significant differences in the best repetition rate, cutoff frequencies, and maximum firing rate could be observed between the different stimulation modes. The proportion of band-pass RRTFs was larger for electrical stimulation (57%) than for acoustic stimulation (41%). The high cutoff frequencies for electrical stimulation were slightly but consistently higher than for acoustic RRTFs of the same neuron and the maximum firing rate for electrical stimulation was significantly higher than that evoked by ipsilateral acoustic stimulation. 4. The entrainment of cortical neurons to electrical and acoustic pulses was determined and entrainment profiles were constructed. For a given neuron, electrical entrainment profiles showed higher cutoff frequencies than with acoustic stimulation when judged with a fixed entrainment criterion of 0.25 spikes per event. The maximum entrainment seen for electrical stimulation was approximately 20% higher than seen for the same neuron with acoustic stimulation. 5. Correlation analysis of repetition coding and latency parameters revealed several relationships between these response aspects. Most prominent among them was a significant correlation between measures of the response latency and estimates of the ability to follow temporal repetitions for acoustic as well as electrical conditions. 6. Parametric and comparative evaluations of cortical responses to acoustic and electrical cochlear stimulation support the conclusion that the temporal resolution seen in cortical neurons is largely a consequence of central processing mechanisms based on cell and circuit properties and to a lesser degree a consequence of particular spatial and temporal peripheral excitation patterns. The slightly higher temporal resolution found for the electrical stimulation modes suggests that the temporally highly coherent electrical stimulation appears to engage, in a more effective manner, the excitatory/inhibitory mechanisms contributing to the response in AI than acoustic click stimulation with less temporal coherence. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)

scholarly journals Behavioral training reverses global cortical network dysfunction induced by perinatal antidepressant exposure

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (7) ◽  
pp. 2233-2238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoming Zhou ◽  
Jordan Y.-F. Lu ◽  
Ryan D. Darling ◽  
Kimberly L. Simpson ◽  
Xiaoqing Zhu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Repetition Rate ◽  
Drug Exposure ◽  
Cortical Plasticity ◽  
Antidepressant Drug ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Exposure Model ◽  
Behavioral Training ◽  
Training Strategy ◽  
Neurological Processes ◽  
And Function

Abnormal cortical circuitry and function as well as distortions in the modulatory neurological processes controlling cortical plasticity have been argued to underlie the origin of autism. Here, we chemically distorted those processes using an antidepressant drug-exposure model to generate developmental neurological distortions like those characteristics expressed in autism, and then intensively trained altered young rodents to evaluate the potential for neuroplasticity-driven renormalization. We found that young rats that were injected s.c. with the antidepressant citalopram from postnatal d 1–10 displayed impaired neuronal repetition-rate following capacity in the primary auditory cortex (A1). With a focus on recovering grossly degraded auditory system processing in this model, we showed that targeted temporal processing deficits induced by early-life antidepressant exposure within the A1 were almost completely reversed through implementation of a simple behavioral training strategy (i.e., a modified go/no-go repetition-rate discrimination task). Degraded parvalbumin inhibitory GABAergic neurons and the fast inhibitory actions that they control were also renormalized by training. Importantly, antidepressant-induced degradation of serotonergic and dopaminergic neuromodulatory systems regulating cortical neuroplasticity was sharply reversed. These findings bear important implications for neuroplasticity-based therapeutics in autistic patients.

scholarly journals Modulation of thalamic auditory neurons by the primary auditory cortex

2012 ◽  
Vol 108 (3) ◽  
pp. 935-942 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Tang ◽  
Weiguo Yang ◽  
Nobuo Suga
Keyword(s):  
Signal Processing ◽  
Electric Stimulation ◽  
Frequency Tuning ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Auditory Signal ◽  
Tuning Curves ◽  
Auditory Responses ◽  
Auditory Signal Processing ◽  
Plastic Changes ◽  
Stimulation Of

The central auditory system consists of the lemniscal and nonlemniscal pathways or systems, which are anatomically and physiologically different from each other. In the thalamus, the ventral division of the medial geniculate body (MGBv) belongs to the lemniscal system, whereas its medial (MGBm) and dorsal (MGBd) divisions belong to the nonlemniscal system. Lemniscal neurons are sharply frequency-tuned and provide highly frequency-specific information to the primary auditory cortex (AI), whereas nonlemniscal neurons are generally broadly frequency-tuned and project widely to cortical auditory areas including AI. These two systems are presumably different not only in auditory signal processing, but also in eliciting cortical plastic changes. Electric stimulation of narrowly frequency-tuned MGBv neurons evokes the shift of the frequency-tuning curves of AI neurons toward the tuning curves of the stimulated MGBv neurons (tone-specific plasticity). In contrast, electric stimulation of broadly frequency-tuned MGBm neurons augments the auditory responses of AI neurons and broadens their frequency-tuning curves (nonspecific plasticity). In our current studies, we found that electric stimulation of AI evoked tone-specific plastic changes of the MGBv neurons, whereas it degraded the frequency tuning of MGBm neurons by inhibiting their auditory responses. AI apparently modulates the lemniscal and nonlemniscal thalamic neurons in quite different ways. High MGBm activity presumably makes AI neurons less favorable for fine auditory signal processing, whereas high MGBv activity makes AI neurons more suitable for fine processing of specific auditory signals and reduces MGBm activity.

scholarly journals Avoidance learning facilitates temporal processing in the primary auditory cortex

2008 ◽  
Vol 90 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew I. Leon ◽  
Bonnie S. Poytress ◽  
Norman M. Weinberger
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Temporal Processing ◽  
Avoidance Learning ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex

scholarly journals Transformation of Temporal Processing Across Auditory Cortex of Awake Macaques

2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (2) ◽  
pp. 712-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian H. Scott ◽  
Brian J. Malone ◽  
Malcolm N. Semple
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Temporal Processing ◽  
Functional Organization ◽  
Frequency Tuning ◽  
Temporal Integration ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Response Threshold ◽  
The Core ◽  
Temporal Properties ◽  
Thalamic Input

The anatomy and connectivity of the primate auditory cortex has been modeled as a core region receiving direct thalamic input surrounded by a belt of secondary fields. The core contains multiple tonotopic fields (including the primary auditory cortex, AI, and the rostral field, R), but available data only partially address the degree to which those fields are functionally distinct. This report, based on single-unit recordings across four hemispheres in awake macaques, argues that the functional organization of auditory cortex is best understood in terms of temporal processing. Frequency tuning, response threshold, and strength of activation are similar between AI and R, validating their inclusion as a unified core, but the temporal properties of the fields clearly differ. Onset latencies to pure tones are longer in R (median, 33 ms) than in AI (20 ms); moreover, synchronization of spike discharges to dynamic modulations of stimulus amplitude and frequency, similar to those present in macaque and human vocalizations, suggest distinctly different windows of temporal integration in AI (20–30 ms) and R (100 ms). Incorporating data from the adjacent auditory belt reveals that the divergence of temporal properties within the core is in some cases greater than the temporal differences between core and belt.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document