Contextual and cross-modality modulation of auditory cortical processing through pulvinar mediated suppression

Lateral posterior nucleus (LP) of thalamus, the rodent homologue of primate pulvinar, projects extensively to sensory cortices. However, its functional role in sensory cortical processing remains largely unclear. Here, bidirectional activity modulations of LP or its projection to the primary auditor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:eLife 2020-03, Vol.9
Main Authors: Chou, Xiao-Lin, Fang, Qi, Yan, Linqing, Zhong, Wen, Peng, Bo, Li, Haifu, Wei, Jinxing, Tao, Huizhong W, Zhang, Li I
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aminopyridines - pharmacology
Anesthetics, Local - pharmacology
Animals
auditory cortex
Auditory Cortex - physiology
Axons
Bandwidths
Brain
Bupivacaine - pharmacology
contextual modulation
Cortex (auditory)
cross-modality modulation
Female
Fluorescent Dyes
Hearing
Information processing
inhibitory neuron
Male
Mice
Mice, Inbred C57BL
Neurons
Neuroscience
Noise
Optogenetics
Primates
Pulvinar
Pulvinar - physiology
pulvinvar
Sensory integration
Somatosensory cortex
Superior colliculus
suppression
Tetrodotoxin
Thalamus
Visual cortex
Visual stimuli
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Summary:Lateral posterior nucleus (LP) of thalamus, the rodent homologue of primate pulvinar, projects extensively to sensory cortices. However, its functional role in sensory cortical processing remains largely unclear. Here, bidirectional activity modulations of LP or its projection to the primary auditory cortex (A1) in awake mice reveal that LP improves auditory processing in A1 supragranular-layer neurons by sharpening their receptive fields and frequency tuning, as well as increasing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). This is achieved through a subtractive-suppression mechanism, mediated largely by LP-to-A1 axons preferentially innervating specific inhibitory neurons in layer 1 and superficial layers. LP is strongly activated by specific sensory signals relayed from the superior colliculus (SC), contributing to the maintenance and enhancement of A1 processing in the presence of auditory background noise and threatening visual looming stimuli respectively. Thus, a multisensory bottom-up SC-pulvinar-A1 pathway plays a role in contextual and cross-modality modulation of auditory cortical processing.
ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/eLife.54157