Spatiotemporal properties of the BOLD response in the songbirds' auditory circuit during a variety of listening tasks.
Auditory fMRI in humans has recently received increasing attention from cognitive neuroscientists as a tool to understand mental processing of learned acoustic sequences and analyzing speech recognition and development of musical skills. The present study introduces this tool in a well-documented animal model for vocal learning, the songbird, and provides fundamental insight in the main technical issues associated with auditory fMRI in these songbirds. Stimulation protocols with various listening tasks lead to appropriate activation of successive relays in the songbirds' auditory pathway. The elicited BOLD response is also region and stimulus specific, and its temporal aspects provide accurate measures of the changes in brain physiology induced by the acoustic stimuli. Extensive repetition of an identical stimulus does not lead to habituation of the response in the primary or secondary telencephalic auditory regions of anesthetized subjects. The BOLD signal intensity changes during a stimulation and subsequent rest period have a very specific time course which shows a remarkable resemblance to auditory evoked BOLD responses commonly observed in human subjects. This observation indicates that auditory fMRI in the songbird may establish a link between auditory related neuro-imaging studies done in humans and the large body of neuro-ethological research on song learning and neuro-plasticity performed in songbirds.
Van Meir
Vincent
V
Bio-Imaging Laboratory, University of Antwerp, Groenenborgerlaan 171, B-2020 Antwerp, Belgium. vincent.vanmeir@ua.ac.be
Boumans
Tiny
T
De Groof
Geert
G
Van Audekerke
Johan
J
Smolders
Alain
A
Scheunders
Paul
P
Sijbers
Jan
J
Verhoye
Marleen
M
Balthazart
Jacques
J
Van der Linden
Annemie
A
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D004594:Electrophysiology; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood*; D020308:Songbirds / Q000502:physiology*; D013687:Telencephalon / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D013788:Thalamus / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors
D010100:Oxygen