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Abstract:
While the understanding of the functional role of different
classes of neurons in the awake primary visual cortex has been
extensively studied since the time of Hubel and Weisel, our
understanding of the basic response selectivity and functional role
of neurons in the primary auditory cortex is much farther from
complete. In particular, while moving bars are now well-recognized
as optimal for many neurons in the primary visual cortex, for an
auditory cortical neuron it is not clear how to select the most
appropriate stimulus. In this study, we recorded from neurons in
the auditory cortex of the awake primate, and used a novel reverse
correlation technique to compute the receptive fields (or preferred
stimuli) of auditory cortical neurons, encompassing both multiple
frequency components and ongoing time. These spectrotemporal
receptive fields make clear that neurons in the primary auditory
cortex, as in the primary visual cortex, typically show
considerable structure, sometimes including multiple excitatory and
inhibitory regions in their receptive fields. These neurons can be
sensitive to stimulus edges in frequency composition or in time,
sensitive to stimulus transitions such as changes in frequency, and
sensitive to combinations of stimulus features.
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