Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 87, Issue 8, 15 April 2020, Pages 770-780
Biological Psychiatry

Archival Report
The Thalamocortical Circuit of Auditory Mismatch Negativity

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2019.10.029Get rights and content
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open access

Abstract

Background

Mismatch negativity (MMN) is an extensively validated biomarker of cognitive function across both normative and clinical populations and has previously been localized to supratemporal auditory cortex. MMN is thought to represent a comparison of the features of the present stimulus versus a mnemonic template formed by the prior stimuli.

Methods

We used concurrent thalamic and primary auditory cortical (A1) laminar recordings in 7 macaques to evaluate the relative contributions of core (lemniscal) and matrix (nonlemniscal) thalamic afferents to MMN generation.

Results

We demonstrated that deviance-related activity is observed mainly in matrix regions of auditory thalamus, MMN generators are most prominent in layer 1 of cortex as opposed to sensory responses that activate layer 4 first and sequentially all cortical layers, and MMN is elicited independent of the frequency tuning of A1 neuronal ensembles. Consistent with prior reports, MMN-related thalamocortical activity was strongly inhibited by ketamine.

Conclusions

Taken together, our results demonstrate distinct matrix versus core thalamocortical circuitry underlying the generation of a higher-order brain response (MMN) versus sensory responses.

Keywords

Auditory
Ketamine
Layer 1
Mismatch negativity
Nonhuman primate
Thalamocortical

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