Novel Virtual Reality System for Auditory Tasks in Head-fixed Mice

Gao, Sibo; Webb, James; Mridha, Zakir; Banta, Anton; Kemere, Caleb; McGinley, Matthew J.

doi:10.1109/embc44109.2020.9176536

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…However, we cannot fully rule out a contribution from secondary factors related to spatial hearing, such as increased spatial attention effort. To test this possibility, future studies could modulate the relationship between running speed and attended sound source location, for example, with an auditory virtual reality system [ 98 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory cortex ensembles jointly encode sound and locomotion speed to support sound perception during movement

Vivaldo,

Lee,

Shorkey

et al. 2023

PLoS Biol

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The ability to process and act upon incoming sounds during locomotion is critical for survival and adaptive behavior. Despite the established role that the auditory cortex (AC) plays in behavior- and context-dependent sound processing, previous studies have found that auditory cortical activity is on average suppressed during locomotion as compared to immobility. While suppression of auditory cortical responses to self-generated sounds results from corollary discharge, which weakens responses to predictable sounds, the functional role of weaker responses to unpredictable external sounds during locomotion remains unclear. In particular, whether suppression of external sound-evoked responses during locomotion reflects reduced involvement of the AC in sound processing or whether it results from masking by an alternative neural computation in this state remains unresolved. Here, we tested the hypothesis that rather than simple inhibition, reduced sound-evoked responses during locomotion reflect a tradeoff with the emergence of explicit and reliable coding of locomotion velocity. To test this hypothesis, we first used neural inactivation in behaving mice and found that the AC plays a critical role in sound-guided behavior during locomotion. To investigate the nature of this processing, we used two-photon calcium imaging of local excitatory auditory cortical neural populations in awake mice. We found that locomotion had diverse influences on activity of different neurons, with a net suppression of baseline-subtracted sound-evoked responses and neural stimulus detection, consistent with previous studies. Importantly, we found that the net inhibitory effect of locomotion on baseline-subtracted sound-evoked responses was strongly shaped by elevated ongoing activity that compressed the response dynamic range, and that rather than reflecting enhanced “noise,” this ongoing activity reliably encoded the animal’s locomotion speed. Decoding analyses revealed that locomotion speed and sound are robustly co-encoded by auditory cortical ensemble activity. Finally, we found consistent patterns of joint coding of sound and locomotion speed in electrophysiologically recorded activity in freely moving rats. Together, our data suggest that rather than being suppressed by locomotion, auditory cortical ensembles explicitly encode it alongside sound information to support sound perception during locomotion.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory cortex ensembles jointly encode sound and locomotion speed to support sound perception during movement

Vivaldo,

Lee,

Shorkey

et al. 2023

PLoS Biol

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“…On the other hand, rodents also have strong auditory capabilities to distinguish sounds at various frequencies and amplitudes [12][13][14] . Auditory spatial cues can guide them to successfully navigate in real 15,16 and virtual environments 17,18 . However, while the MEC responds to non-spatial acoustic cues, such as tones at various frequencies 19,20 , auditory beats 21 , and noise 22 , and exhibits c-fos expression upon auditory stimuli 23 , it is unclear whether the MEC also represents auditory cues that convey spatial information during navigation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The medial entorhinal cortex encodes multisensory spatial information

Nguyen,

Wang,

2024

Preprint

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Animals employ spatial information in multisensory modalities to navigate their natural environments. However, it is unclear whether the brain encodes such information in separate cognitive maps or integrate all into a single, universal map. We addressed this question in the microcircuit of the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC), a cognitive map of space. Using cellular-resolution calcium imaging, we examined the MEC of mice navigating virtual reality tracks, where visual and auditory cues provided comparable spatial information. We uncovered two cell types: “unimodality cells” and “multimodality cells”. The unimodality cells specifically represent either auditory or visual spatial information. They are anatomically intermingled and maintain sensory preferences across multiple tracks and behavioral states. The multimodality cells respond to both sensory modalities with their responses shaped differentially by auditory and visual information. Thus, the MEC enables accurate spatial encoding during multisensory navigation by computing spatial information in different sensory modalities and generating distinct maps.

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