title: Processing of low-probability sounds by cortical neurons.
abstract: The ability to detect rare auditory events can be critical for survival. We report here that neurons in cat primary auditory cortex (A1) responded more strongly to a rarely presented sound than to the same sound when it was common. For the rare stimuli, we used both frequency and amplitude deviants. Moreover, some A1 neurons showed hyperacuity for frequency deviants--a frequency resolution one order of magnitude better than receptive field widths in A1. In contrast, auditory thalamic neurons were insensitive to the probability of frequency deviants. These phenomena resulted from stimulus-specific adaptation in A1, which may be a single-neuron correlate of an extensively studied cortical potential--mismatch negativity--that is evoked by rare sounds. Our results thus indicate that A1 neurons, in addition to processing the acoustic features of sounds, may also be involved in sensory memory and novelty detection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical School, Box 12272, Jerusalem 91120, Israel.
authors.forename: Nachum
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ulanovsky
authors.forename: Liora
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Las
authors.forename: Israel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Nelken
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D001306:Auditory Pathways / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D002415:Cats; D005829:Geniculate Bodies / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D010897:Pitch Discrimination / Q000502:physiology; D011336:Probability