title: Connections of functional areas in the mustached bat's auditory cortex with the auditory thalamus.
abstract: The auditory thalamus is the major target of the inferior colliculus and connects in turn with the auditory cortex. In the mustached bat, biosonar information is represented according to frequency in the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus (ICc) but according to response type in the cortex. In addition, the cortex has multiple areas with neurons of similar response type compared to the single tonotopic representation in the ICc. To investigate whether these transformations occur at the level of the thalamus, we injected anatomical tracers into physiologically defined locations in the mustached bat's auditory cortex. Injections in areas used for target ranging labeled contiguous regions of the auditory thalamus rather than separate patches corresponding to regions that respond to the different harmonic frequencies used for ranging. Injections in the two largest ranging areas produced labeling in separate locations. These results indicate that the thalamus is organized according to response type rather than frequency and that multiple mappings of response types exist. Injections in areas used for target detection labeled thalamic regions that were largely separate from those that interconnect with ranging areas. However, injections in an area used for determining target velocity overlapped with the areas connected to ranging areas and areas involved in target detection. Thus, separation by functional type and multiplication of areas with similar response type occurs by the thalamic level, but connections with the cortex segregate the functional types more completely than occurs in the thalamus.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-7070, USA.
authors.forename: James M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Pearson
authors.forename: William D
authors.initials: WD
authors.lastname: Crocker
authors.forename: Douglas C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Fitzpatrick
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology; D001306:Auditory Pathways / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002685:Chiroptera / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology; D004455:Echolocation / Q000502:physiology*; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005829:Geniculate Bodies / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology; D017979:Gold Colloid; D006735:Horseradish Peroxidase; D008297:Male; D008863:Microspheres; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010835:Phytohemagglutinins; D017729:Presynaptic Terminals / Q000502:physiology / Q000648:ultrastructure; D013045:Species Specificity; D013266:Stilbamidines
chemical_list: C049774:2-hydroxy-4,4'-diamidinostilbene, methanesulfonate salt; D017979:Gold Colloid; D010835:Phytohemagglutinins; D013266:Stilbamidines; C100156:leukoagglutinins, plants; D006735:Horseradish Peroxidase