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Long lasting attenuation by prior sounds in auditory cortex of awake primates

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Abstract

How the brain responds to sequences of sounds is a question of great relevance to a variety of auditory perceptual phenomena. We investigated how long the responses of neurons in the primary auditory cortex of awake monkeys are influenced by the previous sound. We found that responses to the second sound of a two-sound sequence were generally attenuated compared to the response that sound evoked when it was presented first. The attenuation remained evident at the population level even out to inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs) of 5 s, although it was of modest size for ISIs >2 s. Behavioral context (performance versus non-performance of a visual fixation task during sound presentation) did not influence the results. The long time course of the first sound’s influence suggests that, under natural conditions, neural responses in auditory cortex are rarely governed solely by the current sound.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Yale Cohen, Howard C. Hughes, Ryan Metzger, and O’Dhaniel Mullette-Gillman for providing useful comments on this study and Tammy Laroche of the Dartmouth College Brain Imaging Center for assistance with MRI. We are grateful for financial support to K.K. P. from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) NS 44666-02 and to J.M.G. from the following sources: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience, Whitehall Foundation, John Merck Scholars Program, ONR Young Investigator Program, EJLB Foundation, NIH NS 17778-19, and the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, 03755, USA

    Uri Werner-Reiss, Kristin Kelly Porter, Abigail M. Underhill & Jennifer M. Groh

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  1. Uri Werner-Reiss
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  2. Kristin Kelly Porter
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  3. Abigail M. Underhill
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  4. Jennifer M. Groh
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Correspondence to Jennifer M. Groh.

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Uri Werner-Reiss, Kristin Kelly Porter contributed equally to this work

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Werner-Reiss, U., Porter, K.K., Underhill, A.M. et al. Long lasting attenuation by prior sounds in auditory cortex of awake primates. Exp Brain Res 168, 272–276 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-005-0184-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-005-0184-x

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