Constructing noise-invariant representations of sound in the auditory pathway.

ABSTRACT: Identifying behaviorally relevant sounds in the presence of background noise is one of the most important and poorly understood challenges faced by the auditory system. An elegant solution to this problem would be for the auditory system to represent sounds in a noise-invariant fashion. Since a major effect of background noise is to alter the statistics of the sounds reaching the ear, noise-invariant representations could be promoted by neurons adapting to stimulus statistics. Here we investigated the extent of neuronal adaptation to the mean and contrast of auditory stimulation as one ascends the auditory pathway. We measured these forms of adaptation by presenting complex synthetic and natural sounds, recording neuronal responses in the inferior colliculus and primary fields of the audit

SUBMITTER: Rabinowitz NC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3825667 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature