Yusuf Prasandhya Astagiri, Hubka Peter, Tillein Jochen, Vinck Martin, Kral Andrej
Department of Medical Physics/Medical Technology Core Cluster IMERI, Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Institute of AudioNeuroTechnology, Hannover Medical School, Hanover, Germany.
Front Neurosci. 2021 Jan 21;14:625721. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2020.625721. eCollection 2020.
The function of the cerebral cortex essentially depends on the ability to form functional assemblies across different cortical areas serving different functions. Here we investigated how developmental hearing experience affects functional and effective interareal connectivity in the auditory cortex in an animal model with years-long and complete auditory deprivation (deafness) from birth, the congenitally deaf cat (CDC). Using intracortical multielectrode arrays, neuronal activity of adult hearing controls and CDCs was registered in the primary auditory cortex and the secondary posterior auditory field (PAF). Ongoing activity as well as responses to acoustic stimulation (in adult hearing controls) and electric stimulation applied via cochlear implants (in adult hearing controls and CDCs) were analyzed. As functional connectivity measures pairwise phase consistency and Granger causality were used. While the number of coupled sites was nearly identical between controls and CDCs, a reduced coupling strength between the primary and the higher order field was found in CDCs under auditory stimulation. Such stimulus-related decoupling was particularly pronounced in the alpha band and in top-down direction. Ongoing connectivity did not show such a decoupling. These findings suggest that developmental experience is essential for functional interareal interactions during sensory processing. The outcomes demonstrate that corticocortical couplings, particularly top-down connectivity, are compromised following congenital sensory deprivation.
大脑皮层的功能本质上取决于在服务于不同功能的不同皮层区域之间形成功能组件的能力。在此，我们研究了发育性听觉经验如何影响先天性失聪猫（CDC）这一动物模型中听觉皮层的功能和有效区域间连接，该模型从出生起就经历了长达数年的完全听觉剥夺（失聪）。使用皮层内多电极阵列，在成年听力正常对照动物和先天性失聪猫的初级听觉皮层和次级后听觉场（PAF）中记录神经元活动。分析了持续活动以及对听觉刺激（在成年听力正常对照动物中）和通过人工耳蜗施加的电刺激（在成年听力正常对照动物和先天性失聪猫中）的反应。作为功能连接性测量，使用了成对相位一致性和格兰杰因果关系。虽然对照动物和先天性失聪猫之间耦合位点的数量几乎相同，但在听觉刺激下，先天性失聪猫的初级和高阶场之间的耦合强度降低。这种与刺激相关的解耦在α波段和自上而下的方向上尤为明显。持续连接性并未显示出这种解耦。这些发现表明，发育经验对于感觉处理过程中的功能性区域间相互作用至关重要。结果表明，先天性感觉剥夺后，皮质皮质耦合，特别是自上而下的连接性受到损害。
