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.

50 多年来的研究表明，为了建立和更新自我在世界中的位置，大脑会使用外部（非中心）和内部（白痴）信息流。导航神经科学当前的中心目标是了解感觉方式如何影响内部空间表征并与之相互作用。为此，研究人员主要操纵视觉、触觉（墙壁、边界）和/或嗅觉。听觉线索对于我们在环境中的定向具有丰富的信息，但令人惊讶的是，据报道，听觉信息不能或只能很少地影响环境中的定向，并且听觉模态与愚蠢地图的相互作用或多或少。具体来说，听觉线索和习得的音频空间关联在多大程度上以及如何塑造内部空间表征尚未得到很好的研究，感官岛任务是一种经过充分测试的实验范例，用于探测自由导航的啮齿动物的听觉感知。 SIT 很容易测试声源在多大程度上被用作寻路的空间相关线索，并研究特定声音与固定空间位置之间的局部音频空间关联的形成。此外，SIT 可以在绝对黑暗中觅食，从而呈现出声音。空间方向仅依赖于听觉线索和独特信号，因此，它使我们能够在听觉空间参考框架和由独特路径积分器维护的空间图之间引入冲突，以了解听觉的构造。空间及其对空间表征的影响我们在音频空间 SIT 任务中对自由行为的动物的海马区 CA1（HPC CA1，位置细胞）和压后皮层（RSC，头部方向细胞）进行长期记录。作为整合不同类型的独特和异中心信息（包括地标信息和奖励位置）的中心，我们还寻求找到空间相关听觉地标的神经相关性，例如方向或距离调整此外，随着空间关联随着学习而发展，我们将改变先前获得的任务经验的程度，以测试建立音频空间关联的速度以及它在多大程度上影响其强度。最后，海马体和 RSC 的同步电生理记录将有助于研究听觉空间对位置细胞和头部方向系统影响的一致性，该项目将提供对基于听觉的寻路机制的深入了解。和空间交涉。