NYU Neuroscience Institute, New York University Langone Health, New York, NY, USA.
Department of Otolaryngology, New York University Langone Health, New York, NY, USA.
Nat Neurosci. 2024 Mar;27(3):527-535. doi: 10.1038/s41593-023-01556-5. Epub 2024 Jan 30.
Neocortical activity is thought to mediate voluntary control over vocal production, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. In a highly vocal rodent, the male Alston's singing mouse, we investigate neural dynamics in the orofacial motor cortex (OMC), a structure critical for vocal behavior. We first describe neural activity that is modulated by component notes (100 ms), probably representing sensory feedback. At longer timescales, however, OMC neurons exhibit diverse and often persistent premotor firing patterns that stretch or compress with song duration (10 s). Using computational modeling, we demonstrate that such temporal scaling, acting through downstream motor production circuits, can enable vocal flexibility. These results provide a framework for studying hierarchical control circuits, a common design principle across many natural and artificial systems.
新皮层活动被认为介导了对发声的自主控制，但潜在的神经机制仍不清楚。在一种高度发声的啮齿动物——雄性阿尔斯通鸣鼠中，我们研究了口面部运动皮层（OMC）的神经动力学，该结构对于发声行为至关重要。我们首先描述了由组成音符（约 100 毫秒）调制的神经活动，可能代表了感觉反馈。然而，在更长的时间尺度上，OMC 神经元表现出多样且经常持久的前运动发射模式，其随歌曲持续时间（约 10 秒）而拉伸或压缩。通过计算建模，我们证明了这种时间尺度通过下游运动产生电路的作用，可以实现发声的灵活性。这些结果为研究分层控制电路提供了一个框架，这是许多自然和人工系统的共同设计原则。
