Search results for "auditory system"
showing 10 items of 34 documents
Expressive timing facilitates the neural processing of phrase boundaries in music: Evidence from event-related potentials
2013
The organization of sound into meaningful units is fundamental to the processing of auditory information such as speech and music. In expressive music performance, structural units or phrases may become particularly distinguishable through subtle timing variations highlighting musical phrase boundaries. As such, expressive timing may support the successful parsing of otherwise continuous musical material. By means of the event-related potential technique (ERP), we investigated whether expressive timing modulates the neural processing of musical phrases. Musicians and laymen listened to short atonal scale-like melodies that were presented either isochronously (deadpan) or with expressive tim…
Auditory Short-Term Memory Activation during Score Reading
2013
Performing music on the basis of reading a score requires reading ahead of what is being played in order to anticipate the necessary actions to produce the notes. Score reading thus not only involves the decoding of a visual score and the comparison to the auditory feedback, but also short-term storage of the musical information due to the delay of the auditory feedback during reading ahead. This study investigates the mechanisms of encoding of musical information in short-term memory during such a complicated procedure. There were three parts in this study. First, professional musicians participated in an electroencephalographic (EEG) experiment to study the slow wave potentials during a t…
Regularity of Spike Trains and Harmony Perception in a Model of the Auditory System
2011
Spike train regularity of the noisy neural auditory system model under the influence of two sinusoidal signals with different frequencies is investigated. For the increasing ratio m/n of the input signal frequencies (m, n are natural numbers) the linear growth of the regularity is found at the fixed difference (m - n). It is shown that the spike train regularity in the model is high for harmonious chords of input tones and low for dissonant ones.
Mobile phone and auditory system: update
2009
The aim of this study is to asses the non-thermal effects of the electromagnetic fields generated by 915 MHz GSM cellular phones on the human cochlear activity using transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAE). The study was carried on 205 young and healthy volunteers (age 18-30 years) with normal hearing which were randomly divided into two samples consisting of 85 (Gcase) and 120 (Gcontrol) respectively. The first one was exposed to genuine 10 minutes of GSM electromagnetic fields while the second, undergone sham exposure, was considered as control group for the statistical investigations. All the participants were blind to the genuine or sham exposure. The TEOAEs were measured in the …
Rapid nucleus-scale reorganization of chromatin in neurons enables transcriptional adaptation for memory consolidation
2020
AbstractThe interphase nucleus is functionally organized in active and repressed territories defining the transcriptional status of the cell. However, it remains poorly understood how the nuclear architecture of neurons adapts in response to behaviorally relevant stimuli that trigger fast alterations in gene expression patterns. Imaging of fluorescently tagged nucleosomes revealed that pharmacological manipulation of neuronal activity in vitro and auditory cued fear conditioning in vivo induce nucleus-scale restructuring of chromatin within minutes. Furthermore, the acquisition of auditory fear memory is impaired after infusion of a drug into auditory cortex which blocks chromatin reorganiz…
Panel Summary: Plasticity and Reconfigurability in Sensory Systems
1997
Natural neural network are highly plastic in structure and function and may adapt to long lasting environmental changes. Plasticity and adaptation are not confined to lower level of processing, or to lower vertebrates, but also at the higher levels of visual processing in higher vertebrates are highly dynamic and perform considerable spatial integration. There are numerous influences that play a role in the functional architecture of the retina and the, cortex, the dynamics of the outside environment, the context within which a feature is presented, the history of previous visual stimulation and attention or expectation. The brief report on the visual system is integrated by the report of G…
Anatomy and Physiology of the Peripheral and Central Auditory System
2019
The auditory system is responsible for the hearing sense and it consists of the peripheral auditory system (outer, middle and inner ear) and of the central auditory system (vestibular and cochlear nuclei, auditory and vestibular pathways and vestibular and auditory cortices). The outer ear comprises the auricle and the auditory canal and its function is to guide air pressure waves to the middle ear. The middle ear consists of the tympanic membrane, connected to the inner ear by three ossicles (malleus, incus and stapes), which vibrations allow the transmission of originally airborne sound waves to the perilymph of the inner ear. The middle ear provides a pressure gain as well as enhanced qu…
Panel Summary: Frontiers of Human-Machine Interaction
2001
The hot points presented to the panel were the following: What are the broader definitions of Human/Machine interaction? For example: non direct connection (using currently available computer GUI) first phase direct connection (linking sensors to the sensory system) second phase (direct connections into the Central Nervous System) What are the technologies that should be developed in order to enable each of the previous phases? What are the scientific research issues that are related to such phases? What are the possible implications of a direct human-computer link on the society? (compared to the Internet revolution?) There are several phases in Human-Machine interaction. The first, and mo…
Distribution and projections of nitric oxide synthase neurons in the rodent superior olivary complex.
2000
The superior olivary complex (SOC), a group of interrelated brainstem nuclei, sends efferents to a variety of neuronal structures including the cochlea and the inferior colliculus. The present review describes data obtained from rodents providing evidence that the gaseous, short-living neuroactive substance nitric oxide (NO) is produced in the SOC. The NO-synthesizing enzyme neuronal NO-synthase (nNOS) has been localized by means of several methods including histochemistry and immunohistochemistry. Perikarya containing nNOS were found in several nuclei of the SOC. Their largest numbers and percentages of total cells were observed in the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body. Stained terminal…
Mismatch negativity (MMN) in freely-moving rats with several experimental controls.
2014
Mismatch negativity (MMN) is a scalp-recorded electrical potential that occurs in humans in response to an auditory stimulus that defies previously established patterns of regularity. MMN amplitude is reduced in people with schizophrenia. In this study, we aimed to develop a robust and replicable rat model of MMN, as a platform for a more thorough understanding of the neurobiology underlying MMN. One of the major concerns for animal models of MMN is whether the rodent brain is capable of producing a human-like MMN, which is not a consequence of neural adaptation to repetitive stimuli. We therefore tested several methods that have been used to control for adaptation and differential exogenou…