Abstract
The ability of the auditory system to selectively recognize natural sound categories while maintaining a certain degree of tolerance towards variations within these categories, which may have functional roles, is thought to be crucial for vocal communication. To date, it is still largely unknown how the balance between tolerance and sensitivity to variations in acoustic signals is coded at a neuronal level. Here, we investigate whether neurons in a high-order auditory area in zebra finches, a songbird species, are sensitive to natural variations in vocal signals by recording their responses to repeated exposures to identical and variant sound sequences. We used the songs of male birds which tend to be highly repetitive with only subtle variations between renditions. When playing these songs to both anesthetized and awake birds, we found that variations between songs did not affect the neuron firing rate but the temporal reliability of responses. This suggests that auditory processing operates on a range of distinct timescales, namely a short one to detect variations in vocal signals, and longer ones that allow the birds to tolerate variations in vocal signal structure and to encode the global context.
Highlights
The ability of the auditory system to selectively recognize natural sound categories while maintaining a certain degree of tolerance towards variations within these categories, which may have functional roles, is thought to be crucial for vocal communication
Based on extracellular recordings in both anesthetized and awake zebra finches, we found that sequences of song elements that either varied in acoustic detail or remained the same between renditions differentially impacted the temporal reliability of the neuronal responses
Natural variations in the fine acoustic structure of song syllables can be behaviorally discriminated by adult zebra finches[11]
Summary
The ability of the auditory system to selectively recognize natural sound categories while maintaining a certain degree of tolerance towards variations within these categories, which may have functional roles, is thought to be crucial for vocal communication To date, it is still largely unknown how the balance between tolerance and sensitivity to variations in acoustic signals is coded at a neuronal level. We investigate whether neurons in a high-order auditory area in zebra finches, a songbird species, are sensitive to natural variations in vocal signals by recording their responses to repeated exposures to identical and variant sound sequences. This impact in spike timing was observed using a high temporal resolution that allows for the temporal integration of acoustic features over different time scales
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