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The optic tectum controls visually guided adaptive plasticity in the owl's auditory space map
1Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
Nature
|January 10, 2002
Summary
Visual experience shapes the brain's auditory map. Lesioning the optic tectum in owls disrupts auditory map adjustments, showing the tectum specifies auditory plasticity locationally.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Auditory Perception
- Sensory Integration
Background:
- The midbrain auditory map is adaptable and influenced by visual input.
- Barn owls wearing prisms show shifts in their auditory space map within the inferior colliculus (ICX).
- The optic tectum's topographic visual activity is hypothesized to guide auditory map calibration.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of the optic tectum in calibrating the auditory space map.
- To determine if visual experience instructs auditory map plasticity in a location-specific manner.
Main Methods:
- Created a restricted, unilateral lesion in the frontal visual representation area of the optic tectum in barn owls.
- Observed the adaptive adjustments of the auditory space map in the external nucleus of the inferior colliculus (ICX) after the lesion.
- Compared auditory map plasticity in lesioned versus control owls.
Main Results:
- A lesion in the optic tectum eliminated adaptive auditory map adjustments specifically for frontal space representation.
- Auditory map regions not corresponding to the lesioned optic tectum area continued to adapt normally.
- This demonstrates that the optic tectum provides location-specific instructive signals for auditory map calibration.
Conclusions:
- The optic tectum acts as a critical calibrator for the auditory space map in a spatially precise manner.
- The optic tectum's topographic signals directly influence adaptive auditory plasticity within the ICX.
- This highlights a mechanism for how visual experience sculpts auditory spatial representation.
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