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The Journal of Neuroscience, March 15, 1999, 19(6):2326-2336

Early Visual Experience Shapes the Representation of Auditory Space in the Forebrain Gaze Fields of the Barn Owl

Greg L. Miller and Eric I. Knudsen

Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305

Auditory spatial information is processed in parallel forebrain and midbrain pathways. Sensory experience early in life has been shown to exert a powerful influence on the representation of auditory space in the midbrain space-processing pathway. The goal of this study was to determine whether early experience also shapes the representation of auditory space in the forebrain.

Owls were raised wearing prismatic spectacles that shifted the visual field in the horizontal plane. This manipulation altered the relationship between interaural time differences (ITDs), the principal cue used for azimuthal localization, and locations of auditory stimuli in the visual field. Extracellular recordings were used to characterize ITD tuning in the auditory archistriatum (AAr), a subdivision of the forebrain gaze fields, in normal and prism-reared owls.

Prism rearing altered the representation of ITD in the AAr. In prism-reared owls, unit tuning for ITD was shifted in the adaptive direction, according to the direction of the optical displacement imposed by the spectacles. Changes in ITD tuning involved the acquisition of unit responses to adaptive ITD values and, to a lesser extent, the elimination of responses to nonadaptive (previously normal) ITD values. Shifts in ITD tuning in the AAr were similar to shifts in ITD tuning observed in the optic tectum of the same owls.

This experience-based adjustment of binaural tuning in the AAr helps to maintain mutual registry between the forebrain and midbrain representations of auditory space and may help to ensure consistent behavioral responses to auditory stimuli.

Key words: sound localization; experience-dependent plasticity; archistriatum; forebrain; gaze control; barn owl

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Copyright © 1999 Society for Neuroscience  0270-6474/99/1962326-11$05.00/0

This article has been cited by other articles:

				G. L. Miller and E. I. Knudsen Adaptive Plasticity in the Auditory Thalamus of Juvenile Barn Owls J. Neurosci., February 1, 2003; 23(3): 1059 - 1065. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				P. S. Hyde and E. I. Knudsen A Topographic Instructive Signal Guides the Adjustment of the Auditory Space Map in the Optic Tectum J. Neurosci., November 1, 2001; 21(21): 8586 - 8593. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				G. L. Miller and E. I. Knudsen Early Auditory Experience Induces Frequency-Specific, Adaptive Plasticity in the Forebrain Gaze Fields of the Barn Owl J Neurophysiol, May 1, 2001; 85(5): 2184 - 2194. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				E. I. Knudsen, W. Zheng, and W. M. DeBello Traces of learning in the auditory localization pathway PNAS, October 24, 2000; 97(22): 11815 - 11820. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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