Flexible Sensory Representations in Auditory Cortex Driven by Behavioral Relevance

Hiroyuki K Kato; Shea N Gillet; Jeffry S Isaacson

doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2015.10.024

Flexible Sensory Representations in Auditory Cortex Driven by Behavioral Relevance

Neuron. 2015 Dec 2;88(5):1027-1039. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.10.024. Epub 2015 Nov 12.

Authors

Hiroyuki K Kato¹, Shea N Gillet², Jeffry S Isaacson²

Affiliations

¹ Center for Neural Circuits and Behavior and Department of Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. Electronic address: h1kato@ucsd.edu.
² Center for Neural Circuits and Behavior and Department of Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.

Abstract

Animals require the ability to ignore sensory stimuli that have no consequence yet respond to the same stimuli when they become useful. However, the brain circuits that govern this flexibility in sensory processing are not well understood. Here we show in mouse primary auditory cortex (A1) that daily passive sound exposure causes a long-lasting reduction in representations of the experienced sound by layer 2/3 pyramidal cells. This habituation arises locally in A1 and involves an enhancement in inhibition and selective upregulation in the activity of somatostatin-expressing inhibitory neurons (SOM cells). Furthermore, when mice engage in sound-guided behavior, pyramidal cell excitatory responses to habituated sounds are enhanced, whereas SOM cell responses are diminished. Together, our results demonstrate the bidirectional modulation of A1 sensory representations and suggest that SOM cells gate cortical information flow based on the behavioral relevance of the stimulus.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

Acoustic Stimulation
Animals
Auditory Cortex / physiology*
Auditory Perception / genetics
Auditory Perception / physiology*
DNA-Binding Proteins / genetics
DNA-Binding Proteins / metabolism
Epithelial Sodium Channels / genetics
Epithelial Sodium Channels / metabolism
Female
Glutamate Decarboxylase / genetics
Glutamate Decarboxylase / metabolism
Habituation, Psychophysiologic
Male
Mice
Mice, Transgenic
Nerve Net / physiology
Neural Inhibition / physiology*
Neurons / physiology*
Parvalbumins / genetics
Parvalbumins / metabolism
Psychomotor Performance
Sensation / physiology*
Sound*
Time Factors
Transcription Factors / genetics
Transcription Factors / metabolism
Vesicular Inhibitory Amino Acid Transport Proteins / genetics
Vesicular Inhibitory Amino Acid Transport Proteins / metabolism
Wakefulness

Substances

DNA-Binding Proteins
Epithelial Sodium Channels
Grhl3 protein, mouse
Parvalbumins
Scnn1a protein, mouse
Transcription Factors
Vesicular Inhibitory Amino Acid Transport Proteins
Viaat protein, mouse
Glutamate Decarboxylase

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances

Grants and funding