It's about time: the role of temporal context in adaptive auditory coding. (360G-Wellcome-106084_Z_14_Z)

Encoding the temporal organization of natural acoustic scenes is essential for accurate comprehension of sounds, but research on the role of temporal structure in adaptive auditory coding is lacking. In this proposal, I will investigate the neural mechanisms that govern how temporal context shapes auditory learning and memory. The first project will assess how temporal structure is learned implicitly by decoding of rapid memory formation from population activity in auditory and frontal cortical regions. We hypothesize that memory formation becomes progressively more evident and robust from primary to non-primary auditory cortical areas, and most explicit in frontal cortex. The second project will study explicit learning of temporal structures associated with differential timing of rewards and examine whether timing of rewards during behaviour is encoded by primary auditory cortex. These questions will be addressed in humans using electroencephalography (EEG), which allows access to ens emble responses across multiple cortical regions. In ferrets, the use of planar microelectrode arrays (up to 96 channels) will provide a broad coverage and yield simultaneous responses across primary and non-primary auditory cortex during behaviour. Taken together, this integrative approach will help identify the neural bases of encoding and learning of the temporal structure of natural sounds.