Electrophysiological Characterization of the Auditory Striatum During Behavior
Datum
2016-06
Autor:innen
Penix, Phoebe
Zeitschriftentitel
ISSN der Zeitschrift
Bandtitel
Verlag
University of Oregon
Zusammenfassung
The mechanisms by which animals form flexible associations between sounds
and behavioral responses are not well understood. Understanding how associations
between sounds and behavioral responses change dependent on contextual information
requires identifying where in the brain these changes take place. The primary aim of
this study was to determine whether the portion of the dorsal striatum receiving
projections from the auditory cortex and auditory thalamus could be a center for
associating sounds to actions that are known to bring reward. We refer to auditory
neurons in this area as the auditory striatum. To investigate the role of the auditory
striatum in forming flexible associations between sounds and learned behavioral
responses, we examined the activity of auditory striatal neurons in male C57BL/6 mice,
via chronically implanted electrodes, while the mice performed a sound categorization
task in which the action associated with one of the sounds periodically changed.
Our recordings show that many neurons in the auditory striatum respond to
sounds and are selective to sound frequency. We compared the average firing rate of
auditory striatal neurons under conditions in which the same sound was presented, but the rewarded action associated with it was different. We found that about 12% of sound
responsive auditory striatal neurons respond differently during sound presentation,
depending on the sound-action association. However, the majority of these neurons
show no significant difference in activity between conditions. Our results suggest that
the auditory striatum is not the sole mediator of flexibility in sound-action associations.
Beschreibung
49 pages. A thesis presented to the Department of General Science and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Arts, Spring 2016.
Schlagwörter
Neurosciences, Electrophysiology, Striatum, Behavior, Auditory, Mice, Neurobiology