TY  - JOUR
A1  - López Jury, Luciana
A1  - Mannel, Adrian
A1  - García Rosales, Francisco
A1  - Hechavarria-Cueria, Julio C.
T1  - Modified synaptic dynamics predict neural activity patterns in an auditory field within the frontal cortex
T2  - European journal of neuroscience
N2  - Frontal areas of the mammalian cortex are thought to be important for cognitive control and complex behaviour. These areas have been studied mostly in humans, non-human primates and rodents. In this article, we present a quantitative characterization of response properties of a frontal auditory area responsive to sound in the brain of Carollia perspicillata, the frontal auditory field (FAF). Bats are highly vocal animals, and they constitute an important experimental model for studying the auditory system. We combined electrophysiology experiments and computational simulations to compare the response properties of auditory neurons found in the bat FAF and auditory cortex (AC) to simple sounds (pure tones). Anatomical studies have shown that the latter provides feedforward inputs to the former. Our results show that bat FAF neurons are responsive to sounds, and however, when compared to AC neurons, they presented sparser, less precise spiking and longer-lasting responses. Based on the results of an integrate-and-fire neuronal model, we suggest that slow, subthreshold, synaptic dynamics can account for the activity pattern of neurons in the FAF. These properties reflect the general function of the frontal cortex and likely result from its connections with multiple brain regions, including cortico-cortical projections from the AC to the FAF.
KW  - auditory cortex
KW  - bats
KW  - integrate-and-fire
KW  - prefrontal cortex
KW  - sound coding
Y1  - 2019
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/63816
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-638166
SN  - 1460-9568
N1  - We are thankful to Manfred Kössl for his insightful comments and to the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG, Project number 275755787).
N1  - The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1111/EJN.14600.
VL  - 51
IS  - 4
SP  - 1011
EP  - 1025
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Oxford [u.a.]
ER  -