title: Persistent and specific influences of early acoustic environments on primary auditory cortex.
abstract: This study demonstrates that the adult form of 'tonotopic maps' of sound frequency in the rat primary auditory cortex (A1) arises from parallel developmental processes involving two cortical zones: the progressive differentiation and refinement of selectively tone-responsive receptive fields within an initially broadly-tuned posterior zone, and the progressive loss of tone-evoked, short-latency response over an initially large, very broadly tuned anterior zone. The formation of tonotopic maps in A1 was specifically influenced by a rat pup's early acoustic environments. Exposure to pulsed tones resulted in accelerated emergence and an expansion of A1 representations of those specific tone frequencies, as well as a deteriorated tonotopicity and broader-than-normal receptive fields. Thus, auditory experiences during early postnatal development are important in shaping the functional development of auditory cortical representations of specific acoustic environments.
authors.affiliation: Keck Center for Integrative Neurosciences, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143, USA. lizhang@phy.ucsf.edu
authors.forename: L I
authors.initials: LI
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bao
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Merzenich
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D004594:Electrophysiology; D004777:Environment; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats