Neural codes for perceptual discrimination of acoustic flutter in the primate auditory cortex.

ABSTRACT: We recorded from single neurons of the primary auditory cortex (A1), while trained monkeys reported a decision based on the comparison of 2 acoustic flutter stimuli. Crucially, to form the decision, monkeys had to compare the second stimulus rate to the memory trace of the first stimulus rate. We found that the responses of A1 neurons encode stimulus rates both through their periodicity and through their firing rates during the stimulation periods, but not during the working memory and decision components of this task. Neurometric thresholds based on firing rate were very similar to the monkey's discrimination thresholds, whereas neurometric thresholds based on periodicity were lower than the experimental thresholds. Thus, an observer could solve this task with a precision similar to that

SUBMITTER: Lemus L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2684844 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature