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. However, 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 used to form this auditory decision.

A high-density, high-channel count, multiplexed ECoG array for auditory-cortex recordings.

Auditory perception depends on perceptual grouping cues, which relate to how the brain parses the auditory scene into distinct perceptual units, and auditory decisions, which relate to how the brain identifies a sound. These two processes are not independent; both rely on the temporal structure of the acoustic stimulus.

In the version of this article initially published, it was stated that the c-fos gene-based TRAP mouse line described in ref. 42 utilized only the c-fos promoter region to drive CreER T2 . In fact, that line was generated by CreER T2 knock-in to the endogenous c-fos locus. Accordingly, the sentence "Its induction mechanism and available reporter mouse lines are based exclusively on c-fos promoter activity" has been deleted from the Abstract, and the following sentences have been deleted from the third paragraph of the Discussion: "However, these mice utilize only the c-fos promoter region to induce the reporter fluorescent protein and do not include any of the c-fos enhancers we have characterized. On the basis of our findings, the promoter-only reporters might not faithfully recapitulate the expression characteristics of the endogenous c-fos gene in vivo triggered by sensory or pharmacological stimuli. " The changes have been made in the HTML and PDF versions of the article. Erratum: Schizophrenia and brain volume genetic covariation