The Role of Cortical and Subcortical Auditory Pathways in Sound-Driven Behavior
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Date
2019-09-18
Authors
Ponvert, Nicholas
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
For many species, the ability to use information about sound to guide
behavior is important for obtaining rewards such as food, mates, or respite from
danger. The neural pathways that associate sounds with actions that will produce
reward are not well understood. The striatum, a brain region which receives sound
information from the auditory cortex and auditory thalamus, and which can drive
behavior via its outputs in the basal ganglia, represents a potential key hub in the
pathway between sound and action.
In this thesis, I investigate the role of striatal circuits in the context of
sound-guided behavior, and compare parallel corticostriatal and thalamostriatal
pathways that provide auditory information to the striatum. In Chapter II, I
inactivate the striatum while animals perform a frequency discrimination task,
and find that this manipulation leads to a strong deficit in task performance. In
Chapter III, I compare the information about sounds sent to the striatum from the
auditory cortex and auditory thalamus. I find that, while these pathways convey
frequency information to the striatum with similar fidelity, they have different
representations of temporal modulations in sound amplitude. In Chapter IV I
present a behavioral task that could be used to evaluate the relative contribution
of the corticostriatal and thalamostriatal pathways to discriminations of different
sound features. Finally, Chapter V provides a review of the role of cortical and
subcortical pathways in other behavioral contexts, especially in tasks that require
rapid flexibility.
This dissertation includes previously published co-authored material.
Description
Keywords
auditory cortex, auditory decision making, auditory thalamus, neural coding, pathway-specific, striatum