Associations between sounds and actions in early auditory cortex of nonhuman primates
- Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Germany
Abstract
An individual may need to take different actions to the same stimulus in different situations to achieve a given goal. The selection of the appropriate action hinges on the previously learned associations between stimuli, actions, and outcomes in the situations. Here, using a go/no-go paradigm and a symmetrical reward, we show that early auditory cortex of nonhuman primates represents such associations, in both the spiking activity and the local field potentials. Sound-evoked neuronal responses changed with sensorimotor associations shortly after sound onset, and the neuronal responses were largest when the sound signaled that a no-go response was required in a trial to obtain a reward. Our findings suggest that the association process takes place in the auditory system and does not necessarily rely on association cortex. Thus, auditory cortex may contribute to a rapid selection of the appropriate motor responses to sounds during goal-directed behavior.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
European Regional Development Fund (CBBS neuronetwork)
- Ying Huang
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (He 1721/10-1)
- Michael Brosch
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (He 1721/10-1)
- Peter Heil
LIN Special Project (LIN special project)
- Michael Brosch
LIN Special Project (LIN special project)
- Peter Heil
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (He 1721/10-2)
- Michael Brosch
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (He 1721/10-2)
- Peter Heil
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: The experiments in this study were approved by the authority for animal care and ethics of the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt (No. 28-42502-2-1129IfN), and conformed to the rules for animal experimentation of the European Community Council Directive (86/609/EEC).
Copyright
© 2019, Huang et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Associations between sounds and actions in early auditory cortex of nonhuman primates
eLife 8:e43281.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.43281
