Anbuhl Kelsey L, Ferber Alexander T, Brown Andrew D, Benichoux Victor, Greene Nathaniel T, Tollin Daniel J
Department of Biomedical Sciences, Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America.
Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, New York, United States of America.
PLoS Biol. 2025 Sep 5;23(9):e3003337. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3003337. eCollection 2025 Sep.
Early sensory experience can exert lasting perceptual consequences. For example, a brief period of auditory deprivation early in life can lead to persistent spatial hearing deficits. Some forms of hearing loss (i.e., conductive; CHL) can distort acoustical cues needed for spatial hearing, which depend on inputs from both ears. We hypothesize that asymmetric acoustic input during development disrupts auditory circuits that integrate binaural information. Here, we identify prolonged maturation of the binaural auditory brainstem in the guinea pig by tracking auditory evoked potentials across development. Using this age range, we induce a reversible unilateral CHL and ask whether behavioral and neural maturation are disrupted. We find that developmental CHL is associated with alterations in a brainstem readout of binaural function, an effect that was not observed in a separate cohort with adult-onset CHL. Startle-based behavioral measures suggest that Early CHL animals exhibit reduced spatial resolution for high-frequency sound sources. Finally, single-unit recordings of auditory midbrain neurons reveal significantly poorer neural acuity to a sound location cue that largely depends on high-frequency sounds. Thus, these findings show that unilateral deprivation can disrupt developing auditory circuits that integrate binaural information and may give rise to lingering spatial hearing deficits.
早期感觉经验可产生持久的感知后果。例如，生命早期的一段短暂听觉剥夺期可导致持续性空间听力缺陷。某些形式的听力损失（即传导性听力损失；CHL）会扭曲空间听力所需的声学线索，而空间听力依赖于双耳输入。我们假设发育过程中的不对称声学输入会扰乱整合双耳信息的听觉回路。在此，我们通过追踪豚鼠发育过程中的听觉诱发电位，确定了双耳听觉脑干的延长成熟过程。利用这个年龄范围，我们诱导出可逆的单侧CHL，并询问行为和神经成熟是否受到干扰。我们发现，发育性CHL与双耳功能的脑干读数改变有关，在另一组成年期发生CHL的动物中未观察到这种效应。基于惊吓的行为测量表明，早期CHL动物对高频声源的空间分辨率降低。最后，听觉中脑神经元的单单元记录显示，对很大程度上依赖高频声音的声音位置线索的神经敏锐度明显较差。因此，这些发现表明，单侧剥夺会扰乱整合双耳信息的发育中的听觉回路，并可能导致持续的空间听力缺陷。
