Phasic Off responses of auditory cortex underlie perception of sound duration
Haifu Li,
Jian Wang,
Guilong Liu,
Jinfeng Xu,
Weilong Huang,
Changbao Song,
Dijia Wang,
Huizhong W. Tao,
Li I. Zhang,
Feixue Liang
Affiliations
Haifu Li
School of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Key Laboratory of Mental Health of the Ministry of Education, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Shock and Microcirculation, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China
Jian Wang
School of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Key Laboratory of Mental Health of the Ministry of Education, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Shock and Microcirculation, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China
Guilong Liu
School of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Key Laboratory of Mental Health of the Ministry of Education, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Shock and Microcirculation, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China
Jinfeng Xu
School of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Key Laboratory of Mental Health of the Ministry of Education, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Shock and Microcirculation, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China
Weilong Huang
School of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Key Laboratory of Mental Health of the Ministry of Education, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Shock and Microcirculation, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China
Changbao Song
School of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Key Laboratory of Mental Health of the Ministry of Education, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Shock and Microcirculation, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China
Dijia Wang
School of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Key Laboratory of Mental Health of the Ministry of Education, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Shock and Microcirculation, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China
Huizhong W. Tao
Center for Neural Circuits & Sensory Processing Disorders, Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Department of Physiology & Neuroscience, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
Li I. Zhang
Center for Neural Circuits & Sensory Processing Disorders, Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Department of Physiology & Neuroscience, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Corresponding author
Feixue Liang
School of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Key Laboratory of Mental Health of the Ministry of Education, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Shock and Microcirculation, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China; Department of Anesthesiology, Zhujiang Hospital of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510220, China; Corresponding author
Summary: It has been proposed that sound information is separately streamed into onset and offset pathways for parallel processing. However, how offset responses contribute to auditory perception remains unclear. Here, loose-patch and whole-cell recordings in awake mouse primary auditory cortex (A1) reveal that a subset of pyramidal neurons exhibit a transient “Off” response, with its onset tightly time-locked to the sound termination and its frequency tuning similar to that of the transient “On” response. Both responses are characterized by excitation briefly followed by inhibition, with the latter mediated by parvalbumin (PV) inhibitory neurons. Optogenetically manipulating sound-evoked A1 responses at different temporal phases or artificially creating phantom sounds in A1 further reveals that the A1 phasic On and Off responses are critical for perceptual discrimination of sound duration. Our results suggest that perception of sound duration is dependent on precisely encoding its onset and offset timings by phasic On and Off responses.
