title: Temporal asymmetries in auditory coding and perception reflect multi-layered nonlinearities.
abstract: Sound recognition relies not only on spectral cues, but also on temporal cues, as demonstrated by the profound impact of time reversals on perception of common sounds. To address the coding principles underlying such auditory asymmetries, we recorded a large sample of auditory cortex neurons using two-photon calcium imaging in awake mice, while playing sounds ramping up or down in intensity. We observed clear asymmetries in cortical population responses, including stronger cortical activity for up-ramping sounds, which matches perceptual saliency assessments in mice and previous measures in humans. Analysis of cortical activity patterns revealed that auditory cortex implements a map of spatially clustered neuronal ensembles, detecting specific combinations of spectral and intensity modulation features. Comparing different models, we show that cortical responses result from multi-layered nonlinearities, which, contrary to standard receptive field models of auditory cortex function, build divergent representations of sounds with similar spectral content, but different temporal structure.
authors: Unité de Neuroscience, Information et Complexité (UNIC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UPR 3293, F-91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
authors: Thomas
authors: T
authors: Deneux
authors: Unité de Neuroscience, Information et Complexité (UNIC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UPR 3293, F-91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
authors: Alexandre
authors: A
authors: Kempf
authors: Unité de Neuroscience, Information et Complexité (UNIC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UPR 3293, F-91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
authors: Aurélie
authors: A
authors: Daret
authors: Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UMR 9912, F-75004 Paris, France.
authors: Emmanuel
authors: E
authors: Ponsot
authors: Unité de Neuroscience, Information et Complexité (UNIC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UPR 3293, F-91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
authors: Brice
authors: 0000-0001-9211-1960
authors: B
authors: Bathellier
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003056:Cochlear Nerve / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D006309:Hearing / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal / Q000379:methods; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D013016:Sound