Catherine Del Negro, Jean-Marc Edeline Team

Neural Code & Auditory Perception

In brief

Our researches aim at determining the neural code involved in the processing of communication sounds. In songbirds, we showed that the neuronal responses of a high-level auditory region code for the sequential order of song elements. In mammals, we revealed that the robustness of neuronal responses to acoustic degradations is present at each level of the auditory system. The coding strategies involved in cochlear implants and the role of oxytocin in modulating the cortical responses to communication sounds are also investigated.

Our research

Our work is based on electrophysiological recordings in the thalamo-cortical auditory system. We first demonstrated that the receptive fields of thalamo-cortical neurons are selectively modified after a brief session of aversive conditioning. Then we studied the influence of Acetylcholine and Norepinephrine on the receptive fields of auditory cortex neurons. After investigating the role of tone-evoked oscillations and of bursts in the thalamo-cortical system, we spent the recent years studying the neural code underlying the discrimination of communication sounds.

Selected Publications

> Cazala A. Giret N, Edeline J-M & Del Negro C. (2019) Neuronal encoding in a high level auditory area: from sequential order of elements to grammatical structure, J. Neuroscience. 39(31) 6150-6161.

> Adenis V, Gourévitch B, Mamelle E, Recugnat M, Stahl P, Gnansia D, Nguyen Y, Edeline JM. (2018) ECAP growth function to increasing pulse amplitude or pulse duration demonstrates large inter-animal variability that is reflected in auditory cortex of the guinea pig. PLoS One.13(8) e0201771

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