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Temporal plasticity in the primary auditory cortex induced by operant perceptual learning

Nature Neuroscience volume 7, pages 974–981 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Processing of rapidly successive acoustic stimuli can be markedly improved by sensory training. To investigate the cortical mechanisms underlying such temporal plasticity, we trained rats in a 'sound maze' in which navigation using only auditory cues led to a target location paired with food reward. In this task, the repetition rate of noise pulses increased as the distance between the rat and target location decreased. After training in the sound maze, neurons in the primary auditory cortex (A1) showed greater responses to high-rate noise pulses and stronger phase-locking of responses to the stimuli; they also showed shorter post-stimulation suppression and stronger rebound activation. These improved temporal dynamics transferred to trains of pure-tone pips. Control animals that received identical sound stimulation but were given free access to food showed the same results as naive rats. We conclude that this auditory perceptual learning results in improvements in temporal processing, which may be mediated by enhanced cortical response dynamics.

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Figure 1: Learning a temporal rate discrimination task.
Figure 2: Training enhances cortical responses to high-rate noise pulses.
Figure 3: Training enhances cortical phase-locked responses.
Figure 4: Training effects on cortical responses to repetitive tone pips.
Figure 5: Spectral tuning bandwidth measured at 30 dB above the threshold.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by National Institutes of Health grants NS-10414 and NS-34835, the Coleman Fund, the Sandler Fund, the Mental Insight Foundation and the National Organization for Hearing Research Foundation. We thank J. Davis for help with the experiments. We thank D. Polley and C.-L. Teng for comments on this manuscript.

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  1. Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience, University of California, San Francisco, 94143-0732, California, USA

    Shaowen Bao, Edward F Chang, Jennifer Woods & Michael M Merzenich

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  1. Shaowen Bao
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  2. Edward F Chang
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Correspondence to Shaowen Bao.

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Bao, S., Chang, E., Woods, J. et al. Temporal plasticity in the primary auditory cortex induced by operant perceptual learning. Nat Neurosci 7, 974–981 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1293

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