title: Environmental enrichment rescues the degraded auditory temporal resolution of cortical neurons induced by early noise exposure.
abstract: The accurate processing of sound temporal information is crucial to human speech perception and other species-specific communication. During postnatal development, the auditory cortex shows environmental and experience-dependent plasticity. However, how the postnatal environment affects cortical processing of sound temporal information is not fully understood. The aim of the present study was to determine whether postnatal noise exposure impairs neural temporal resolution in the auditory cortex, and, if so, whether environmental enrichment can rescue this degraded neural temporal acuity. Using the neural gap detection threshold determined in anesthetized rats as an index of temporal acuity, we found that exposure of juvenile rats to moderate-level noise induced much higher neural gap detection thresholds in adulthood than exposure of adult rats to the same noise. Environmental enrichment did not affect cortical neural gap detection thresholds in normally developing rats. However, rearing of rats with early noise exposure in an enriched environment promoted recovery from the noise-induced degraded neural temporal resolution. In addition, the tonal stimuli in the enriched environment contributed to only a portion of the recovery. These results provide evidence for noise-induced developmental impairment in neural gap detection thresholds in the auditory cortex, and suggest a therapeutic potential for environmental enrichment as a non-invasive approach to rescue developmentally degraded auditory temporal processing.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, Ministry of Education, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China.
authors.forename: Cuiping
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, Ministry of Education, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoxiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, Ministry of Education, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China.
authors.forename: Liping
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, Ministry of Education, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China.
authors.forename: Jinghong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, Ministry of Education, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China.
authors.forename: Jiping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000379:methods; D000200:Action Potentials; D000818:Animals; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006799:Housing, Animal; D008297:Male; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D020127:Recovery of Function / Q000502:physiology; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological / Q000502:physiology
keywords: auditory cortex; enriched environment; gap detection threshold; noise exposure; postnatal development