Title:
Experience dependent coding of intonations by offsets in mouse auditory cortex

dc.contributor.advisor Liu, Robert C.
dc.contributor.author Chong, Kelly K.
dc.contributor.committeeMember Jaeger, Dieter
dc.contributor.committeeMember Nygaard, Lynne C.
dc.contributor.committeeMember Sober, Samuel J.
dc.contributor.committeeMember Stanley, Garrett B.
dc.contributor.department Biomedical Engineering (Joint GT/Emory Department)
dc.date.accessioned 2020-05-20T16:47:03Z
dc.date.available 2020-05-20T16:47:03Z
dc.date.created 2019-05
dc.date.issued 2019-01-07
dc.date.submitted May 2019
dc.date.updated 2020-05-20T16:47:03Z
dc.description.abstract Acoustic communication is an important aspect of many social interactions across mammalian species. The encoding of intra-species vocalizations and plasticity mechanisms engaged during the process of learning vocalizations are poorly understood. This is particularly true with regards to how sensory representations of vocalizations is transformed between primary to secondary auditory cortical areas. Moreover, learning in a natural communication paradigm engages auditory cortical plasticity mechanisms in ways that are distinct from laboratory operant training paradigms, emphasizing the importance of studying learning in social settings. Our work utilizes a natural paradigm in which mouse mothers learn the behavioral significance of pup ultrasonic vocalizations during maternal experience to study auditory cortical plasticity in a natural social context. Specifically, we aim to determine how mice learn to use acoustic features to discriminate vocalization categories. One of the acoustic features that can be used to distinguish whistle-like mouse vocalizations is their frequency trajectory or intonation, which can be modeled using a parameterized sinusoidally frequency modulated tone. We will employ a combination of in vivo head-fixed awake single unit electrophysiology and modeling of the natural mouse vocalization repertoire to explore the frequency trajectory parameter space. With this approach, we aim to study the native sensitivity of auditory cortical neurons to frequency trajectory parameters across primary and secondary auditory regions, as well as how sensitivity to these parameters changes with experience. This work will further our understanding of how the acoustic feature space is represented by the auditory cortex, and uncovers a potential mechanism by which natural sound categories are learned.
dc.description.degree Ph.D.
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/62628
dc.language.iso en_US
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology
dc.subject Neuroscience
dc.subject Neural coding
dc.subject Sensory
dc.subject Auditory
dc.subject Plasticity
dc.subject Offset
dc.subject Intonation
dc.subject Frequency modulation
dc.subject Encoding
dc.subject Mouse
dc.subject Cortex
dc.subject Vocalization processing
dc.subject Electrophysiology
dc.subject Maternal
dc.subject Sinusoidal frequency modulation
dc.title Experience dependent coding of intonations by offsets in mouse auditory cortex
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Dissertation
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.advisor Liu, Robert C.
local.contributor.corporatename Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
local.contributor.corporatename College of Engineering
relation.isAdvisorOfPublication b8d62de9-50c2-4277-850f-af75a4d154a3
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication da59be3c-3d0a-41da-91b9-ebe2ecc83b66
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 7c022d60-21d5-497c-b552-95e489a06569
thesis.degree.level Doctoral
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