Acoustical Enrichment during Early Development Improves Response Reliability in the Adult Auditory Cortex of the Rat

0493479 - ÚEM 2019 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Bureš, Zbyněk - Pysaněnko, Kateryna - Lindovský, Jiří - Syka, Josef
Acoustical Enrichment during Early Development Improves Response Reliability in the Adult Auditory Cortex of the Rat.
Neural Plasticity. Roč. 2018, č. 2018 (2018), č. článku 5903720. ISSN 2090-5904. E-ISSN 1687-5443
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GBP304/12/G069
Institutional support: RVO:68378041
Keywords : inferior colliculus neurons * noise exposure * postnatal-development
OECD category: Neurosciences (including psychophysiology
Impact factor: 3.591, year: 2018

It is well known that auditory experience during early development shapes response properties of auditory cortex (AC) neurons, influencing, for example, tonotopical arrangement, response thresholds and strength, or frequency selectivity. Here, we show that rearing rat pups in a complex acoustically enriched environment leads to an increased reliability of responses of AC neurons, affecting both the rate and the temporal codes. For a repetitive stimulus, the neurons exhibit a lower spike count variance, indicating a more stable rate coding. At the level of individual spikes, the discharge patterns of individual neurons show a higher degree of similarity across stimulus repetitions. Furthermore, the neurons follow more precisely the temporal course of the stimulus, as manifested by improved phase-locking to temporally modulated sounds. The changes are persistent and present up to adulthood. The results document that besides basic alterations of receptive fields presented in our previous study, the acoustic environment during the critical period of postnatal development also leads to a decreased stochasticity and a higher reproducibility of neuronal spiking patterns.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0286845