Sensory Processing: Comodulation masking release in the inferior colliculus by combined signal enhancement and masker reduction

摘要

Auditory signals that contain coherent level fluctuations of a masker in different frequency regions enhance the detectability of an embedded sinusoidal target signal, an effect commonly known as comodulation masking release (CMR). Neural correlates have been proposed at different stages of the auditory system. While later stages seem to suppress the response to the masker, earlier stages are more likely to enhance their response to the signal when the masker is comodulated. Using a flanking band masking paradigm, the present study investigates how CMR is represented at the level of the inferior colliculus of the Mongolian gerbil. The responses to a target signal at various sound pressure levels in three different masking conditions were compared. In one condition the masker was a 10-Hz amplitude modulated sinusoid centered at the signal frequency while in the other two conditions six off-frequency carriers (flanking bands) were added. For 64 of a total of 94 units, the addition of comodulated flanking bands to the on-frequency masker did not change the response to the target signal. The remaining 30 units showed a change that enhanced target detectability if coherent flanking bands were added, indicative of CMR. The current data demonstrate that the response characteristics of these neurons represent an intermediate stage between the representation in the cochlear nucleus and the auditory cortex by increasing the response during the signal intervals and decreasing the response for the following masker portions.>NEW & NOTEWORTHY The detection of comodulation, i.e., coherent level fluctuations in different frequency regions, is an important feature of speech recognition. In this study, we demonstrate how the representation of a signal in comodulated masking conditions changes along the auditory pathway by using a stimulus paradigm from the cochlea nucleus for the first time in the inferior colliculus. This happens on a timescale that makes corticocollicular feedback a likely candidate as the source.