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Review
. 2007 Jul;229(1-2):180-5.
doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2007.01.002. Epub 2007 Jan 17.

Toward the mechanisms of auditory attention

Affiliations
Review

Toward the mechanisms of auditory attention

Tomás Hromádka et al. Hear Res. 2007 Jul.

Abstract

Since the earliest studies of auditory cortex, it has been clear that an animal's behavioral or attentional state can play a crucial role in shaping the response characteristics of single neurons. Much of what has been learned about attention has been made using human and animal models, but little is known about the cellular and synaptic mechanisms by which attentional modulation of neuronal responses occurs. The use of rodent experimental models allows us to exploit the full armamentarium of modern cellular and molecular neuroscience techniques. Here we present our program for studying auditory attention, specifically for development of rodent models of attention and finding the neural correlates of attention.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Structure of basic two-alternative choice (2-AC) task
Rats are trained to poke onto the center port. (left). This elicits the presentation of an acoutstic stimulus (middle), which in this case is a tone played from either the right speaker. (In other variants of the task, the stimulus is either a high- or low-frequency tone or chord, presented from a single central speaker). If the subject responds with a poke into the correct port, he is rewarded with a water reward. Well-trained subjects perform many (>500) trials in a single session, and can achieve high asymptotic performance (>95% correct).

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