Plasticity of spatial hearing: behavioural effects of cortical inactivation.

Journal article

The cerebral cortex plays a critical role in perception and in learning-induced plasticity. We show that reversibly silencing any of the main regions of auditory cortex impairs the ability of adult ferrets to localize sound, with the largest deficit seen after deactivating the primary fields. Although these animals had no trouble localizing longer sound bursts, their performance dropped considerably when auditory spatial cues were altered by occluding one ear with an earplug. In contrast to c...

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Authors: Nodal, F; Bajo, V; King, A

• Publication status: Published
• Journal: Journal of physiology
• Volume: 590
• Issue: Pt 16
• Pages: 3965-3986
• Publication date: 2012-08-01
• DOI: 10.1113/jphysiol.2011.222828
• EISSN: 1469-7793
• ISSN: 0022-3751
• Language: English
• Keywords: Polyvinyls; Muscimol; Auditory Cortex; GABA-A Receptor Agonists; Ear Protective Devices; Behavior, Animal; Ferrets; Animals; Hearing Loss, Central; Electrophysiological Phenomena; Dosage Forms; Sound Localization