Seminars in Hearing Research at Purdue (SHRP)

Date: October 12, 2023
Time: 12pm - 1:00pm
Location: Zoom

Title: A top-down, cingulate-to-auditory cortex projection facilitates effortful listening

Speaker: Kelsey L. Anbuhl, PhD

Abstract: : We often exert greater cognitive resources (i.e., listening effort) to understand speech under challenging acoustic conditions. This mechanism can be overwhelmed in those with hearing loss, resulting in cognitive fatigue in adults, and potentially impeding language acquisition in children. However, the neural mechanisms that support listening effort are uncertain. Evidence from human studies suggest that the cingulate cortex is engaged under difficult listening conditions and may exert top-down modulation of the auditory cortex. In this talk, I will provide anatomical evidence in the gerbil for a strong, descending projection from the cingulate cortex to dorsal and primary auditory cortex. I will also discuss an auditory effort task used to vary the difficulty of listening conditions, where trials were clustered into ‘Easy’ or ‘Hard’ blocks based on sound duration (long vs short duration, respectively). Then, I will demonstrate that the cingulate-to-auditory cortex projection facilitates performance during hard listening blocks by using chemogenetic (i.e., DREADDs) and pharmacological (i.e., muscimol) approaches. Taken together, these results suggest that this top-down, cingulate-to-auditory cortex pathway is a plausible circuit that may be undermined by hearing loss.

Zoom Info: https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/j/4326340458
Meeting ID: 432 634 0458

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