Stimulus-specific adaptation and deviance detection in the auditory cortex

Abstract

[EN] Neurons in primary auditory cortex, thalamus and midbrain show stimulus-specific adaptation (SSA), a reduction in response to repetitive stimuli that does not affect neuronal responses to deviant tones. This has been proposed as a neuronal correlate of the mismatch negativity (MMN), a special evoked potential in response to deviant tones. However, three important requirements remain to be demonstrated in order to support the SSA-MMN link: (1) MMN is generated mainly within higher-order auditory cortical areas, whereas cortical SSA has only been recorded in A1 of different species. (2) MMN is a mid-long latency response, peaking between 100-200 ms in humans, whereas SSA has only been observed in early responses of A1 neurons. And finally, (3) neuronal responses to oddball stimulation have not been tested for deviance detection–enhancement of responses to deviant events—in addition to SSA, which is an essential property of any bona-fide mismatch response. In this study, I set specific objectives to investigate the relation between SSA and MMN, and moreover, I will test the Hierarchical Predictive Coding account for the MMN at the neuronal level, showing that single neuron responses to oddball stimulation represent prediction error, which is hierarchically organized along the auditory system.