Abstract 577, Date 1:00 pm Monday, February 24, 2003 (24 hours) Session J3: Auditory Cortex: Cellular Mechanisms and Plasticity
Dynamic Filtering in Rat Auditory Cortex
Robert L. Rennaker, Hoang Ho, Pradeep Kilambi, Michael P. Kilgard
Understanding how experience modifies cortical response properties lends insight into auditory information processing and learning.   It has been demonstrated that associative learning can result in stimulus specific plasticity of frequency receptive fields in the auditory cortex.   Condon and Weinberger (1991) demonstrated that habituation also induces a specific change in the frequency response of neurons.   Dynamic changes in receptive field organization may increase the robustness of the cortical representation of auditory scenes.   In addition, adaptation may contribute to perceptual illusions and priming phenomena.   This study expands our understanding of habituation's effect on cortical responses by systematically studying the effect of habituation duration and the presentation rate.   Cortical responses are monitored using chronic multi-channel neural recording from up to 15 locations in rat primary auditory cortex simultaneously.   This experimental paradigm allows us to study the effect of habituation on multiple cells across the auditory cortex.   Our results verify that habituation can result in frequency specific modifications of the receptive fields. Understanding the normal function of sensory adaptation may shed light on a number of neurological disorders characterized by reduced adaptation (including tinnitus, schizophrenia, and autism).         Supported by the National Institutes for Deafness and Communicative Disorders and the Cure Autism Now Foundation.