When the brain switches from hearing to listening

Date:
December 14, 2021
Source:
University of Basel
Summary:
What happens in the brain when simply hearing becomes listening? To
answer this question, researchers have traced the neuronal
fingerprint of the two types of sound processing in the mouse brain.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
What happens in the brain when simply hearing becomes listening? To
answer this question, researchers at the University of Basel have traced
the neuronal fingerprint of the two types of sound processing in the
mouse brain.


==========================================================================
It is intuitively clear to us that there is a difference between
passive hearing and active listening. Attention and an animated state,
but also movement, play a role in how sound processing in the brain
adjusts accordingly.

Neuroscientists Professor Tania Rinaldi Barkat and Dr. Gioia De Franceschi
from the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel have
provided an accurate account of what happens in this process in the
journal Cell Reports.

For their study, the researchers examined the activity of neurons in four different areas in the brains of mice known to be involved in increasingly complex sound processing. During the experiment, the animals were either passively hearing the sounds played to them, or actively listening to
them to receive a reward for detecting the sounds.

Activity pattern depends on various factors It was shown that the majority
of neurons changed their activity when switching between hearing and
listening. "But this doesn't mean that all neurons behaved the same way," explains De Franceschi. "We actually found ten distinct and specific
types of activity change." While most of the neurons showed a change
that was probably related to varying levels of attention, some of them
also showed patterns of activity that were related to the arousal level of
the mice, their movement, the availability of a reward, or a combination
of these factors.

Impact on all processing levels The auditory pathway in the brain consists
of a number of different nuclei that relay acoustic information from
the cochlea to the primary auditory cortex. Two of the four areas along
the auditory pathway studied by the researchers are thought to be at a
"higher level" in terms of processing complexity. "At the beginning of our study, we suspected that these were the areas particularly affected by attention to sounds," said Barkat. "Surprisingly, however, this wasn't
the case." Attention also alters activity in brain areas previously
thought to perform only basic forms of sound processing.

"The results make it clear that even the detection of a simple sound
is a cognitive process that profoundly and extensively shapes the
way the brain works, even at very early stages of sensory processing." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Basel. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Gioia De Franceschi, Tania Rinaldi Barkat. Task-induced modulations
of
neuronal activity along the auditory pathway. Cell Reports, 2021;
37 (11): 110115 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.110115 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211214135132.htm

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