Constructing auditory space: modulation of the spatial map by auditory cues and landmarks

构建听觉空间：通过听觉线索和地标调制空间图

• 批准号: 527393560
• 负责人: Privatdozent Dr. Michael Pecka
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Lehrstuhl für Neurobiologie
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/527393560?language=en
• 关键词: Constructing; auditory; space; modulation; spatial

Pathfinding and navigation through one’s environment are crucial for survival. Research over 50 years identified that in order to build and update the location of self in the world both external (allocentric) and internal (idiothetic) information streams are used by the brain. Accordingly, a current central goal of navigational neuroscience is to understand how sensory modalities influence and interact with the internal spatial representation. To this end, researchers have manipulated mainly visual, tactile (walls, borders) and/or olfactory sensory information. Auditory cues are highly informative for our orientation in the environment. Yet surprisingly, it has been reported that auditory information can not or only poorly influence orientation in the environment, and the interactions of the auditory modality with idiothetic maps has been more or less overlooked. Specifically, to what extent and how auditory cues and learned audio-spatial associations shape the internal spatial representation is not well investigated. The Sensory-Island Task is a well-tested experimental paradigm for probing auditory perception in freely navigating rodents. SIT readily allows testing to what extent sound sources are used as spatially-relevant cues for pathfinding and to investigate the formation of local audio-spatial associations between a particular sound with a fixed spatial location. Moreover, SIT enables foraging in absolute darkness, rendering the spatial orientation dependent on auditory cues and idiothetic signals only. Thus, it enables us to introduce a conflict between the auditory spatial reference frame and the spatial map maintained by an idiothetic path integrator. To gain understanding over the construction of the auditory space and its influence on the spatial representation we perform chronic recordings from the hippocampal area CA1 (HPC CA1, place cells) and the retrosplenial cortex (RSC, head direction cells) in freely-behaving animals in the audio-spatial SIT task. As RSC serves as a hub integrating different types of idiothetic and allocentric information including landmark information and reward location, we also seek to find neural correlates of spatially-relevant auditory landmarks, exemplified by direction or distance tuning to the location of the sound source. In addition, as spatial associations develop with learning, we will vary the degree of prior gained task experience to test how fast the audio-spatial associations can be established and to what extent it affects the strength of its spatial modulation. Finally, simultaneous electrophysiological recordings in the hippocampus and RSC would allow to investigate the coherence of the influence of the auditory space on both place cell and head direction systems. Together, this project will provide insight into the mechanisms of auditory-based pathfinding and spatial representations.

通过环境的路径和导航对于生存至关重要。 50多年来的研究确定，为了建立和更新自我在世界上的位置，大脑都使用了外部（同类）和内部（惯用）信息流。根据此目的，研究人员主要操纵视觉，触觉（墙壁，边界）和/或嗅觉感官信息。听觉提示对于我们在环境中的取向方面具有很高的信息。令人惊讶的是，据报道，听觉信息在环境中不能或仅仅是影响不佳的影响，并且听觉方式与惯用图的相互作用或多或少被忽略了。具体而言，听觉线索和学习的音频空间关联在多大程度上以及如何塑造了内部空间表示。感官岛任务是经过良好测试的实验范式，用于探测自由导航啮齿动物中的听觉知觉。 SIT容易允许测试在何种程度上用作途径与空间相关的线索，并研究具有固定空间位置的特定声音之间的局部音频空间 - 空间之间的相关性。此外，Sit可以在绝对黑暗中觅食，从而仅取决于听觉提示和惯用信号的空间取向。这样，它使我们能够引入听觉空间参考框架与由惯用路径积分器维护的空间图之间的冲突。为了了解听觉空间的构建及其对空间表示的影响，我们从海马面积CA1（HPC CA1，Plote Cells）和脾后皮层（RSC，头部方向细胞）中执行慢性记录。由于RSC充当集成了不同类型的白痴和中心信息，包括地标信息和奖励位置，因此我们还试图找到与空间相关的听觉地标的中性相关性，以方向或距离调谐到音源的位置，例如。此外，随着空间关联与学习的发展，我们将改变先前获得的任务经验的程度，以测试可以建立音频空间关联的速度，并在多大程度上影响其空间调制的强度。最后，海马和RSC中的简单电生理记录将允许研究听觉空间对位置细胞和头部方向系统的影响的连贯性。该项目将共同洞悉基于听觉的探路和空间表示的机制。