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Stereotactically-guided Ablation of the Rat Auditory Cortex, and Localization of the Lesion in the Brain
Published on: October 11, 2017
Selective attention increases both gain and feature selectivity of the human auditory cortex
Jaakko Kauramäki1, Iiro P Jääskeläinen, Mikko Sams
1Laboratory of Computational Engineering, Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland. Jaakko.Kauramaki@tkk.fi
Plos One
|September 20, 2007
Summary
Auditory selective attention in humans enhances neural frequency selectivity, not just neural gain. This finding challenges existing models of how the brain focuses on relevant sounds amidst noise.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Auditory Perception
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Selective attention allows focusing on relevant auditory information while filtering out noise.
- Neural gain increase is a proposed mechanism for selective attention.
- Neural selectivity enhancement is an alternative or complementary mechanism.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if neural gain increase alone explains auditory selective attention.
- To determine the role of enhanced neural selectivity in auditory attention.
Main Methods:
- Quantified auditory cortex frequency selectivity in 20 healthy subjects.
- Used a notched-noise masker to mask 1000-Hz tones.
- Assessed responses during conditions of attending to tone frequency/duration or ignoring sounds.
Main Results:
- In the ignore condition, global field power (GFP) was suppressed by noise notch width.
- During selective attention, the suppressant effect of noise notch width on GFP was reduced.
- The observed effects deviated significantly from predictions of a simple gain model.
Conclusions:
- Auditory selective attention in humans is not solely explained by increased neural activity (gain).
- Selective attention also enhances the frequency selectivity of the auditory cortex.
- This suggests a dual mechanism involving both gain and selectivity for auditory attention.
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