From: malcolm@interval.com (Malcolm Slaney)
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 21:06:44 -0800
Subject: Auditory Plasticity
Message-Id: <v0211010aab73f4f6c56b@[192.203.7.70]>

The neurobiology at CCRMA continues this coming Thursday with a discussion
of learning in auditory cortex.

What role does experience play in the processing of auditory information
in the brain?  Until more is known about how auditory information is normally
processed in the brain (and how such processing is organized), particularly
in the neocortex, this will remain a very difficult question to answer. However,
a number of recent studies suggest that experience plays a critical role
in shaping the functionality of neural auditory centers.

This week at CCRMA, Joshua Gold, a graduate student in the Department of
Neurobiology at Stanford, will be leading a discussion on the influence of
experience on the neural processing of auditory information. He will focus
on a recent paper describing plasticity in the frequency reprentation in AI
in adult owl monkeys, along with some of his own work which deals with
complex, frequency-dependent adjustments of the neural map of auditory space
in the optic tectum of the barn owl.
        Who:    Josh Gold (Stanford Neuobiology)
        When:   Thursday March 2, 1995 at 11AM
        What:   Plasticity of Frequency Representation
        Where:  CCRMA Library (Top Floor of the Knoll at Stanford)

-- Malcolm
P.S.  Just a reminder... a Web page with an archive of past announcements
is maintained by Mike Cohen (UCSC).  I'm grateful for the archiving.  The
address is
        http://mambo.ucsc.edu/psl/ccrmas/ccrmas.html
Check it out.



TITLE:           Plasticity in the frequency representation of primary auditory
                   cortex following discrimination training in adult owl
                   monkeys.
AUTHOR:          Recanzone, G. H.  (NIH, Lab of Sensorimotor Research,
                   Bethesda, MD, US)
                 Schreiner, C. E.
                 Merzenich, M. M.
PUBLICATION:     Journal of Neuroscience.  1993 Jan Vol 13(1) 87-103.  (ISSN
                   02706474)
ABSTRACT:  Tested the hypothesis that the functional organization of AI is
   altered as a result of an animal's improvement in auditory discrimination
   ability using 10 adult owl monkeys as Ss. Ss, trained for several weeks to
   discriminate small differences in the frequency of auditory stimuli (AS),
   revealed steady improvement in performance with training. At the end of the
   training period, the tonotopic organization (TO) of AI was defined by
   recording cortical responses. These responses were compared to those derived
   from 3 normal Ss and from 2 Ss that received the same AS but were engaged in
   a tactile discrimination task. The cortical representation, the sharpness of
   tuning, and the latency of the response were greater for the behaviorally
   relevant frequencies of trained Ss when compared to the same frequencies of
   control Ss. The cortical representation was the only studied parameter that
   correlated with behavioral performance.