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Sustained firing in auditory cortex evoked by preferred stimuli

Nature volume 435, pages 341–346 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

It has been well documented that neurons in the auditory cortex of anaesthetized animals generally display transient responses to acoustic stimulation, and typically respond to a brief stimulus with one or fewer action potentials1,2,3,4,5. The number of action potentials evoked by each stimulus usually does not increase with increasing stimulus duration1,5,6,7. Such observations have long puzzled researchers across disciplines and raised serious questions regarding the role of the auditory cortex in encoding ongoing acoustic signals. Contrary to these long-held views, here we show that single neurons in both primary (area A1) and lateral belt areas of the auditory cortex of awake marmoset monkeys (Callithrix jacchus) are capable of firing in a sustained manner over a prolonged period of time, especially when they are driven by their preferred stimuli. In contrast, responses become more transient or phasic when auditory cortex neurons respond to non-preferred stimuli. These findings suggest that when the auditory cortex is stimulated by a sound, a particular population of neurons fire maximally throughout the duration of the sound. Responses of other, less optimally driven neurons fade away quickly after stimulus onset. This results in a selective representation of the sound across both neuronal population and time.

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Figure 1: Examples of sustained firing of single neurons evoked by long-duration stimuli.
Figure 2: Temporal firing patterns evoked by preferred and non-preferred stimuli.
Figure 3: Quantitative analysis of sustained and onset responses.
Figure 4: Quantitative measures of single-neuron responses to brief tones.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Pistorio for assistance with animal training and care, S. Eliades for technical assistance, R. Adams for help with maintaining the marmoset colony, and C. Wen for support throughout this work. This work was supported by an NIH grant and a US Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (X.W.).Author Contributions X.W. led the development of the chronic recording preparation for awake marmosets with contributions from co-authors. R.K.S. and T.L. co-designed the Xblaster stimulus delivery and data acquisition system used in this study. X.W., L.L. and T.L. carried out the electrophysiological recording experiments. X.W. and T.L. analysed the data and wrote the manuscript.

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  1. Ross K. Snider

    Present address: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, 59717, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Auditory Neurophysiology, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, 21205, USA

    Xiaoqin Wang, Thomas Lu, Ross K. Snider & Li Liang

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  1. Xiaoqin Wang
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Correspondence to Xiaoqin Wang.

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Wang, X., Lu, T., Snider, R. et al. Sustained firing in auditory cortex evoked by preferred stimuli. Nature 435, 341–346 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03565

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