Codes for complex sound perception in auditory corte

old_uid16960
titleCodes for complex sound perception in auditory corte
start_date2018/12/03
schedule11h
onlineno
summaryThe early auditory system decomposes incoming sounds into a collection of sine waves with different frequencies. But we would not describe our everyday experience of hearing sound as one of “perceiving frequencies”. Rather, we hear complex features such as a familiar voice or a musical melody. Our work examines how the auditory cortex integrates the frequency and timing components of sounds into more behaviourally relevant features, such as “pitch”. Pitch is our perception of the tonal quality of sounds that allows us to experience musical melody, interpret speech, and attend to one voice in a crowded room. We are using a combination of electrophysiological, behavioural and 2-photon calcium imaging techniques in ferrets to better understand how populations of auditory cortical neurons encode a sound’s pitch. Our results have provided insights into the mechanisms used by individual neurons and neural populations to produce our perception of pitch across a wide range of complex sounds. This work helps explaining how we can recognize a familiar tune on a violin or piano.
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