Neuronal coding of multiscale temporal features in communication sequences within the bat auditory cortex

Experimental evidence supports that cortical oscillations represent multiscale temporal modulations existent in natural stimuli, yet little is known about the processing of these multiple timescales at a neuronal level. Here, using extracellular recordings from the auditory cortex (AC) of awake bats...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Communications biology 2018-11, Vol.1 (1), p.200-200, Article 200
Main Authors: García-Rosales, Francisco, Beetz, M. Jerome, Cabral-Calderin, Yuranny, Kössl, Manfred, Hechavarria, Julio C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
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Biology
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Carollia perspicillata
Chiroptera
Conspecifics
Cortex (auditory)
Firing rate
Hearing
Information processing
Life Sciences
Neural coding
Oscillations
Temporal cortex
Temporal variations
Theta rhythms
Vocalization behavior
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Summary:Experimental evidence supports that cortical oscillations represent multiscale temporal modulations existent in natural stimuli, yet little is known about the processing of these multiple timescales at a neuronal level. Here, using extracellular recordings from the auditory cortex (AC) of awake bats ( Carollia perspicillata ), we show the existence of three neuronal types which represent different levels of the temporal structure of conspecific vocalizations, and therefore constitute direct evidence of multiscale temporal processing of naturalistic stimuli by neurons in the AC. These neuronal subpopulations synchronize differently to local-field potentials, particularly in theta- and high frequency bands, and are informative to a different degree in terms of their spike rate. Interestingly, we also observed that both low and high frequency cortical oscillations can be highly informative about the listened calls. Our results suggest that multiscale neuronal processing allows for the precise and non-redundant representation of natural vocalizations in the AC. García-Rosales et al. identified three distinct neuronal populations within the auditory cortex of awake Carollia perspicillata bats. These neurons responded to different temporal features of communication calls from conspecifics and synchronized to distinct cortical oscillations, suggesting multiscale temporal representation at a cellular level.
ISSN:2399-3642
2399-3642
DOI:10.1038/s42003-018-0205-5