QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

HOME  |   SEARCH  |   ARCHIVE  |   SUBSCRIBE  |   CONTACT  |   HELP

The Journal of Neuroscience, April 2, 2008, 28(14):3657-3667; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4539-07.2008

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit an eLetter Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Las, L. Articles by Nelken, I. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Las, L. Articles by Nelken, I.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Functional Gradients of Auditory Sensitivity along the Anterior Ectosylvian Sulcus of the Cat

Liora Las,¹ Ayelet-Hashahar Shapira,¹ and Israel Nelken^1,2

¹Department of Neurobiology, The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, and ²The Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel

Correspondence should be addressed to Israel Nelken, Department of Neurobiology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel. Email: israel{at}cc.huji.ac.il

Determining the spatial direction of sound sources is one of the major computations performed by the auditory system. The anterior ectosylvian sulcus (AES) of cat cortex is known to be important for sound localization. However, there are contradicting reports as to the spatial response properties of neurons in AES: whereas some studies found narrowly tuned neurons, others reported mostly spatially widely tuned neurons. We hypothesized that this is the result of a nonhomogenous distribution of the auditory neurons in this area. To test this possibility, we recorded neuronal activity along the AES, together with a sample of neurons from primary auditory cortex (A1) of cats in response to pure tones and to virtual acoustic space stimuli. In all areas, most neurons responded to both types of stimuli. Neurons located in posterior AES (pAES) showed special response properties that distinguished them from neurons in A1 and from neurons in anterior AES (aAES). The proportion of space-selective neurons among auditory neurons was significantly higher in pAES (82%) than in A1 (72%) and in aAES (60%). Furthermore, whereas the large majority of A1 neurons responded preferentially to contralateral sounds, neurons in pAES (and to a lesser extent in aAES) had their spatial selectivity distributed more homogenously. In particular, 28% of the space-selective neurons in pAES had highly modulated frontal receptive fields, against 8% in A1 and 17% in aAES. We conclude that in cats, pAES contains a secondary auditory cortical field which is specialized for spatial processing, in particular for the representation of frontal space.

Key words: auditory cortex; anterior ectosylvian sulcus; sound localization; HRTF; electrophysiology; cat

---

Received Oct. 5, 2007; revised Feb. 12, 2008; accepted Feb. 28, 2008.

Correspondence should be addressed to Israel Nelken, Department of Neurobiology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel. Email: israel{at}cc.huji.ac.il

Home  |   Search  |   Archive  |   Subscribe  |   Contact  |   Help