The causal role of auditory cortex in auditory working memory.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Yu L
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8169109 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:Perceptual training is generally assumed to improve perception by modifying the encoding or decoding of sensory information. However, this assumption is incompatible with recent demonstrations that transfer of learning can be enhanced by across-trial variation of training stimuli or task. Here we present three lines of evidence from healthy adults in support of the idea that the enhanced transfer of auditory discrimination learning is mediated by working memory (WM). First, the ability to discriminate small differences in tone frequency or duration was correlated with WM measured with a tone n-back task. Second, training frequency discrimination around a variable frequency transferred to and from WM learning, but training around a fixed frequency did not. The transfer of learning in both directions was correlated with a reduction of the influence of stimulus variation in the discrimination task, linking WM and its improvement to across-trial stimulus interaction in auditory discrimination. Third, while WM training transferred broadly to other WM and auditory discrimination tasks, variable-frequency training on duration discrimination did not improve WM, indicating that stimulus variation challenges and trains WM only if the task demands stimulus updating in the varied dimension. The results provide empirical evidence as well as a theoretic framework for interactions between cognitive and sensory plasticity during perceptual experience.
| S-EPMC4723131 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Selective attention filters information to limit what is encoded and maintained in working memory. Although the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is central to both selective attention and working memory, the underlying neural processes that link these cognitive abilities remain elusive. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging to guide repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation with electroencephalographic recordings in humans, we perturbed PFC function at the inferior frontal junction in participants before they performed a selective-attention, delayed-recognition task. This resulted in diminished top-down modulation of activity in posterior cortex during early encoding stages, which predicted a subsequent decrement in working memory accuracy. Participants with stronger fronto-posterior functional connectivity displayed greater disruptive effects. Our data further suggests that broad alpha-band (7-14 Hz) phase coherence subserved this long-distance top-down modulation. These results suggest that top-down modulation mediated by the prefrontal cortex is a causal link between early attentional processes and subsequent memory performance.
| S-EPMC3083493 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Working memory is the cognitive capacity of short-term storage of information for goal-directed behaviors. Where and how this capacity is implemented in the brain are unresolved questions. We show that auditory cortex stores information by persistent changes of neural activity. We separated activity related to working memory from activity related to other mental processes by having humans and monkeys perform different tasks with varying working memory demands on the same sound sequences. Working memory was reflected in the spiking activity of individual neurons in auditory cortex and in the activity of neuronal populations, that is, in local field potentials and magnetic fields. Our results provide direct support for the idea that temporary storage of information recruits the same brain areas that also process the information. Because similar activity was observed in the two species, the cellular bases of some auditory working memory processes in humans can be studied in monkeys.
| S-EPMC4974052 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We examined the relationship between cognitive-linguistic mechanisms and auditory closure ability in children. Sixty-seven school-age children recognized isolated words and keywords in sentences that were interrupted at a rate of 2.5 Hz and 5 Hz. In essence, children were given only 50% of speech information and asked to repeat the complete word or sentence. Children's working memory capacity (WMC), attention, lexical knowledge, and retrieval from long-term memory (LTM) abilities were also measured to model their role in auditory closure ability. Overall, recognition of monosyllabic words and lexically easy multisyllabic words was significantly better at 2.5 Hz interruption rate than 5 Hz. Recognition of lexically hard multisyllabic words and keywords in sentences was better at 5 Hz relative to 2.5 Hz. Based on the best fit generalized "logistic" linear mixed effects models, there was a significant interaction between WMC and lexical difficulty of words. WMC was positively related only to recognition of lexically easy words. Lexical knowledge was found to be crucial for recognition of words and sentences, regardless of interruption rate. In addition, LTM retrieval ability was significantly associated with sentence recognition. These results suggest that lexical knowledge and the ability to retrieve information from LTM is crucial for children's speech recognition in adverse listening situations. Study findings make a compelling case for the assessment and intervention of lexical knowledge and retrieval abilities in children with listening difficulties.
| S-EPMC7641369 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The maintenance of items in working memory (WM) relies on a widespread network of cortical areas and hippocampus where synchronization between electrophysiological recordings reflects functional coupling. We investigated the direction of information flow between auditory cortex and hippocampus while participants heard and then mentally replayed strings of letters in WM by activating their phonological loop. We recorded local field potentials from the hippocampus, reconstructed beamforming sources of scalp EEG, and - additionally in four participants - recorded from subdural cortical electrodes. When analyzing Granger causality, the information flow was from auditory cortex to hippocampus with a peak in the [4 8] Hz range while participants heard the letters. This flow was subsequently reversed during maintenance while participants maintained the letters in memory. The functional interaction between hippocampus and the cortex and the reversal of information flow provide a physiological basis for the encoding of memory items and their active replay during maintenance.
| S-EPMC9374435 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The ability to group sensory data into behaviorally meaningful classes and to maintain these perceptual categories active in working memory is key to intelligent behavior. Here, we show that carrion crows, highly vocal and cognitively advanced corvid songbirds, possess categorical auditory working memory. The crows were trained in a delayed match-to-category task that required them to flexibly match remembered sounds based on the upward or downward shift of the sounds' frequency modulation. After training, the crows instantaneously classified novel sounds into the correct auditory categories. The crows showed sharp category boundaries as a function of the relative frequency interval of the modulation. In addition, the crows generalized frequency-modulated sounds within a category and correctly classified novel sounds kept in working memory irrespective of other acoustic features of the sound. This suggests that crows can form and actively memorize auditory perceptual categories in the service of cognitive control of their goal-directed behaviors.
| S-EPMC7662871 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Auditory perceptual decisions are thought to be mediated by the ventral auditory pathway. However, the specific and causal contributions of different brain regions in this pathway, including the middle-lateral (ML) and anterolateral (AL) belt regions of the auditory cortex, to auditory decisions have not been fully identified. To identify these contributions, we recorded from and microstimulated ML and AL sites while monkeys decided whether an auditory stimulus contained more low-frequency or high-frequency tone bursts. Both ML and AL neural activity was modulated by the frequency content of the stimulus. But, only the responses of the most stimulus-sensitive AL neurons were systematically modulated by the monkeys' choices. Consistent with this observation, microstimulation of AL, but not ML, systematically biased the monkeys' behavior toward the choice associated with the preferred frequency of the stimulated site. Together, these findings suggest that AL directly and causally contributes sensory evidence to form this auditory decision.
| S-EPMC4696881 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Can cognitive load enhance concentration on task-relevant information and help filter out distractors? Most of the prior research in the area of selective attention has focused on visual attention or cross-modal distraction and has yielded controversial results. Here, we studied whether working memory load can facilitate selective attention when both target and distractor stimuli are auditory. We used a letter n-back task with four levels of working memory load and two levels of distraction: congruent and incongruent distractors. This combination of updating and inhibition tasks allowed us to manipulate working memory load within the selective attention task. Participants sat in front of three loudspeakers and were asked to attend to the letter presented from the central loudspeaker while ignoring that presented from the flanking ones (spoken by a different person), which could be the same letter as the central one (congruent) or a different (incongruent) letter. Their task was to respond whether or not the central letter matched the letter presented n (0, 1, 2, or 3) trials back. Distraction was measured in terms of the difference in reaction time and accuracy on trials with incongruent versus congruent flankers. We found reduced interference from incongruent flankers in 2- and 3-back conditions compared to 0- and 1-back conditions, whereby higher working memory load almost negated the effect of incongruent flankers. These results suggest that high load on verbal working memory can facilitate inhibition of distractors in the auditory domain rather than make it more difficult as sometimes claimed.
| S-EPMC8440250 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Coordinated attention to information from multiple senses is fundamental to our ability to respond to salient environmental events, yet little is known about brain network mechanisms that guide integration of information from multiple senses. Here we investigate dynamic causal mechanisms underlying multisensory auditory-visual attention, focusing on a network of right-hemisphere frontal-cingulate-parietal regions implicated in a wide range of tasks involving attention and cognitive control. Participants performed three 'oddball' attention tasks involving auditory, visual and multisensory auditory-visual stimuli during fMRI scanning. We found that the right anterior insula (rAI) demonstrated the most significant causal influences on all other frontal-cingulate-parietal regions, serving as a major causal control hub during multisensory attention. Crucially, we then tested two competing models of the role of the rAI in multisensory attention: an 'integrated' signaling model in which the rAI generates a common multisensory control signal associated with simultaneous attention to auditory and visual oddball stimuli versus a 'segregated' signaling model in which the rAI generates two segregated and independent signals in each sensory modality. We found strong support for the integrated, rather than the segregated, signaling model. Furthermore, the strength of the integrated control signal from the rAI was most pronounced on the dorsal anterior cingulate and posterior parietal cortices, two key nodes of saliency and central executive networks respectively. These results were preserved with the addition of a superior temporal sulcus region involved in multisensory processing. Our study provides new insights into the dynamic causal mechanisms by which the AI facilitates multisensory attention.
| S-EPMC4300257 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Distinguishing threatening from nonthreatening stimuli is essential for survival and stimulus generalization is a hallmark of anxiety disorders. While auditory threat learning produces long-lasting plasticity in primary auditory cortex (Au1), it is not clear whether such Au1 plasticity regulates memory specificity or generalization. We used muscimol infusions in rats to show that discriminatory threat learning requires Au1 activity specifically during memory acquisition and retrieval, but not during consolidation. Memory specificity was similarly disrupted by infusion of PKMζ inhibitor peptide (ZIP) during memory storage. Our findings show that Au1 is required at critical memory phases and suggest that Au1 plasticity enables stimulus discrimination.
| S-EPMC5159661 | biostudies-literature