Distinct timescales for the neuronal encoding of vocal signals in a high-order auditory area

Abstract The ability of the auditory system to selectively recognize natural sound categories while maintaining a certain degree of tolerance towards variations within these categories, which may have functional roles, is thought to be crucial for vocal communication. To date, it is still largely un...

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Autores principales:	Aurore Cazala, Catherine Del Negro, Nicolas Giret
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/17884e61b7034c29b339da2f3d24d764
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id	oai:doaj.org-article:17884e61b7034c29b339da2f3d24d764
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:17884e61b7034c29b339da2f3d24d7642021-12-02T18:01:40ZDistinct timescales for the neuronal encoding of vocal signals in a high-order auditory area10.1038/s41598-021-99135-w2045-2322https://doaj.org/article/17884e61b7034c29b339da2f3d24d7642021-10-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-99135-whttps://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract The ability of the auditory system to selectively recognize natural sound categories while maintaining a certain degree of tolerance towards variations within these categories, which may have functional roles, is thought to be crucial for vocal communication. To date, it is still largely unknown how the balance between tolerance and sensitivity to variations in acoustic signals is coded at a neuronal level. Here, we investigate whether neurons in a high-order auditory area in zebra finches, a songbird species, are sensitive to natural variations in vocal signals by recording their responses to repeated exposures to identical and variant sound sequences. We used the songs of male birds which tend to be highly repetitive with only subtle variations between renditions. When playing these songs to both anesthetized and awake birds, we found that variations between songs did not affect the neuron firing rate but the temporal reliability of responses. This suggests that auditory processing operates on a range of distinct timescales, namely a short one to detect variations in vocal signals, and longer ones that allow the birds to tolerate variations in vocal signal structure and to encode the global context.Aurore CazalaCatherine Del NegroNicolas GiretNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-13 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Aurore Cazala Catherine Del Negro Nicolas Giret Distinct timescales for the neuronal encoding of vocal signals in a high-order auditory area
description	Abstract The ability of the auditory system to selectively recognize natural sound categories while maintaining a certain degree of tolerance towards variations within these categories, which may have functional roles, is thought to be crucial for vocal communication. To date, it is still largely unknown how the balance between tolerance and sensitivity to variations in acoustic signals is coded at a neuronal level. Here, we investigate whether neurons in a high-order auditory area in zebra finches, a songbird species, are sensitive to natural variations in vocal signals by recording their responses to repeated exposures to identical and variant sound sequences. We used the songs of male birds which tend to be highly repetitive with only subtle variations between renditions. When playing these songs to both anesthetized and awake birds, we found that variations between songs did not affect the neuron firing rate but the temporal reliability of responses. This suggests that auditory processing operates on a range of distinct timescales, namely a short one to detect variations in vocal signals, and longer ones that allow the birds to tolerate variations in vocal signal structure and to encode the global context.
format	article
author	Aurore Cazala Catherine Del Negro Nicolas Giret
author_facet	Aurore Cazala Catherine Del Negro Nicolas Giret
author_sort	Aurore Cazala
title	Distinct timescales for the neuronal encoding of vocal signals in a high-order auditory area
title_short	Distinct timescales for the neuronal encoding of vocal signals in a high-order auditory area
title_full	Distinct timescales for the neuronal encoding of vocal signals in a high-order auditory area
title_fullStr	Distinct timescales for the neuronal encoding of vocal signals in a high-order auditory area
title_full_unstemmed	Distinct timescales for the neuronal encoding of vocal signals in a high-order auditory area
title_sort	distinct timescales for the neuronal encoding of vocal signals in a high-order auditory area
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/17884e61b7034c29b339da2f3d24d764
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_version_	1718378971997929472

Distinct timescales for the neuronal encoding of vocal signals in a high-order auditory area

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