E.A.R.S. is a monthly auditory seminar series with the focus on central auditory processing and circuits. Please pre-register (for free) and tune in via Crowdcast (enter your email to receive the link for the talk): https://www.crowdcast.io/e/ears/10

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Speakers:

Dr. David Schneider (New York University):

“Motor-related expectation drives predictive processing in mouse auditory cortex”

In the auditory cortex of mice, monkeys, and humans, self-generated sounds (e.g. vocalizations or footsteps) are processed differently than are other environmental sounds. Here, we describe and quantify a behavioral paradigm for studying how the brain processes self-generated sounds and we provide evidence that expectation-related modulation in the cortex derives from a precise, movement-based internal model.

Dr. Laurel Carney (University of Rochester):

“Neural Representations of Stimulus Envelopes: What’s Inside?”

Most studies of envelope processing have focused on either the wideband stimulus envelope, or on the envelopes of a linear filterbank representing the auditory periphery. This talk will introduce the transformation of stimulus envelope that occur from the auditory periphery through the auditory midbrain. Nonlinear transduction of sensory receptor cells in the cochlear, together with nonlinear cochlear amplification, result in significant distortion (or enhancement) of stimulus features related to the envelopes of complex sounds. Consideration of the neural representation of stimulus envelope features provides a different insight for considerations of psychophysical sensitivity to this aspect of complex sounds.