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Changing tune in auditory cortex

Nature Neuroscience volume 13, pages 271–273 (2010)Cite this article

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Investigating the organization of tone representation in the rodent auditory cortex at high resolution, two new studies in this issue find that the arrangement of relative frequency responsiveness is not preserved at a fine-scale cortical level.

Staying organized is tough, but usually worth the effort. Even if you don't follow that maxim, your brain certainly seems to. Neural circuits are wired with marked accuracy, with neurons being capable of contacting select targets with single-cell precision. Some of the most conspicuous and well-studied examples of neuronal organization occur in sensory systems, many of which have highly ordered representations, or maps, of the sensory periphery in respective brain regions. In the visual and somatosensory systems, for example, the relative spatial arrangements of receptors at the periphery, the retina and the body surface, are maintained in cortical representations as retinotopic and somatotopic maps. The fact that smooth and orderly maps of the periphery are preserved throughout the chain of successive nuclei up to primary cortical areas seems to argue for their general usefulness. Indeed, the 'neighbor preserving' organization of sensory maps is thought to facilitate circuit operations, such as lateral inhibition, that benefit from relative proximity.

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Figure 1: Tonotopy and network architecture in primary auditory cortex (A1).

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  1. Departments of Otolaryngology and Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Jason B Castro & Karl Kandler

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  1. Jason B Castro
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  2. Karl Kandler
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Correspondence to Jason B Castro or Karl Kandler.

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Castro, J., Kandler, K. Changing tune in auditory cortex. Nat Neurosci 13, 271–273 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0310-271

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