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Auditory cortical receptive fields: stable entities with plastic abilities.

Mounya Elhilali¹, Jonathan B Fritz, Tai-Shih Chi

¹Center for Auditory and Acoustic Research, Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA. mounya@umd.edu

The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience

|September 28, 2007

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Most auditory cortical neurons maintain stable receptive fields, even in adulthood. Spontaneous changes are minimal compared to learning-induced plasticity, confirming stable neural representations of acoustic scenes.

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Auditory Neuroscience
Computational Neuroscience

Background:

Cortical neurons are hypothesized to have stable receptive fields for reliable acoustic scene representation.
Recent findings suggest adult cortical neurons exhibit rapid plasticity, potentially altering responses based on behavioral salience.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate spontaneous changes in auditory cortical neurons' receptive fields.
To differentiate intrinsic receptive field variability from behaviorally induced plasticity.

Main Methods:

Recorded spectrotemporal receptive fields (STRFs) from single neurons in the primary auditory cortex (A1) of awake ferrets over 30-120 minute intervals.
Utilized a global STRF shape analysis and data-driven clustering to classify STRF stability (stable vs. labile).

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

Over 73% of A1 neurons demonstrated stable receptive field attributes during quiescent states.
Intrinsic STRF variations were insignificant when compared to plasticity induced by behavioral tasks involving auditory stimuli.

Conclusions:

Auditory cortical neurons largely maintain stable receptive fields, supporting reliable acoustic processing.
Behaviorally induced plasticity, driven by attentional focus on salient acoustic cues, is distinct from and significantly larger than spontaneous receptive field variability.