Search Papers | Poster Sessions | All Posters
Poster A83 in Poster Session A - Tuesday, August 6, 2024, 4:15 – 6:15 pm, Johnson Ice Rink
Laminar Processing in Primary Auditory Cortex ‘Untangles’ Vocalization Representations During an Active Categorization Task
Srivatsun Sadagopan1,2,3 (), Manaswini Kar2,3, Kayla Williams1; 1Department of Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh, 2Center for Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh, 3Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
Vocalizations, such as animal calls and human speech, are produced with tremendous between-subject and inter-trial variability. A central function of auditory processing is to generalize over this variability and group calls into discrete categories. Previously, we developed an interpretable hierarchical model that accomplishes categorization by detecting features of intermediate complexity that capture the ‘gist’ of each call category. Neural responses selective for such features emerged in the superficial layers (L2/3) of primary auditory cortex (A1), and behavioral choices in a call categorization task were well-explained by this feature-based model. Here, we ask how call representations in different A1 laminae are modulated by task performance. We performed neural recordings from A1 of guinea pigs trained to categorize one conspecific call type from many other conspecific call types. Feature-selective neurons in A1 L2/3, while preserving their high selectivity to specific call features, showed increased output gain during task performance. Incorporating this increased output gain into our model resulted in better separated (‘untangled’) representations of categories. Together, these preliminary theoretical and experimental results reveal novel computational principles underlying auditory categorical representations and their modulation by attention. More broadly, our studies may provide insight into general computational principles underlying categorization across sensory modalities.
Keywords: categorization vocalization auditory cortex laminar processing