HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 93/2/734    most recent 00675.2004v1 Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (23) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Romanski, L. M. Articles by Diltz, M. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Romanski, L. M. Articles by Diltz, M.

Neural Representation of Vocalizations in the Primate Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex

¹Departments of Neurobiology and Anatomy and ²Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York

Submitted 2 July 2004; accepted in final form 9 September 2004

In this study, we examined the role of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in encoding communication stimuli. Specifically, we recorded single-unit responses from the ventrolateral prefrontal cortext (vlPFC) in awake behaving rhesus macaques in response to species-specific vocalizations. We determined the selectivity of vlPFC cells for 10 types of rhesus vocalizations and also asked what types of vocalizations cluster together in the neuronal response. The data from the present study demonstrate that vlPFC auditory neurons respond to a variety of species-specific vocalizations from a previously characterized library. Most vlPFC neurons responded to two to five vocalizations, while a small percentage of cells responded either selectively to a particular vocalization type or nonselectively to most auditory stimuli tested. Use of information theoretic approaches to examine vocalization tuning indicates that on average, vlPFC neurons encode information about one or two vocalizations. Further analysis of the types of vocalizations that vlPFC cells typically respond to using hierarchical cluster analysis suggests that the responses of vlPFC cells to multiple vocalizations is not based strictly on the call's function or meaning but may be due to other features including acoustic morphology. These data are consistent with a role for the primate vlPFC in assessing distinctive acoustic features.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				L. Qin, J. Y. Wang, and Y. Sato Representations of Cat Meows and Human Vowels in the Primary Auditory Cortex of Awake Cats J Neurophysiol, May 1, 2008; 99(5): 2305 - 2319. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				B. E. Russ, A. L. Ackelson, A. E. Baker, and Y. E. Cohen Coding of Auditory-Stimulus Identity in the Auditory Non-Spatial Processing Stream J Neurophysiol, January 1, 2008; 99(1): 87 - 95. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. C. Furtak, T. A. Allen, and T. H. Brown Single-Unit Firing in Rat Perirhinal Cortex Caused by Fear Conditioning to Arbitrary and Ecological Stimuli J. Neurosci., November 7, 2007; 27(45): 12277 - 12291. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				L. M. Romanski Representation and Integration of Auditory and Visual Stimuli in the Primate Ventral Lateral Prefrontal Cortex Cereb Cortex, September 1, 2007; 17(suppl_1): i61 - i69. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				Y. E. Cohen, F. Theunissen, B. E. Russ, and P. Gill Acoustic Features of Rhesus Vocalizations and Their Representation in the Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex J Neurophysiol, February 1, 2007; 97(2): 1470 - 1484. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				B. Gourevitch and J. J. Eggermont Spatial Representation of Neural Responses to Natural and Altered Conspecific Vocalizations in Cat Auditory Cortex J Neurophysiol, January 1, 2007; 97(1): 144 - 158. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				B. B. Averbeck and L. M. Romanski Probabilistic Encoding of Vocalizations in Macaque Ventral Lateral Prefrontal Cortex J. Neurosci., October 25, 2006; 26(43): 11023 - 11033. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				T. Sugihara, M. D. Diltz, B. B. Averbeck, and L. M. Romanski Integration of Auditory and Visual Communication Information in the Primate Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex J. Neurosci., October 25, 2006; 26(43): 11138 - 11147. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. W. H. Schnupp, T. M. Hall, R. F. Kokelaar, and B. Ahmed Plasticity of temporal pattern codes for vocalization stimuli in primary auditory cortex. J. Neurosci., May 3, 2006; 26(18): 4785 - 4795. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				C. DiMattina and X. Wang Virtual Vocalization Stimuli for Investigating Neural Representations of Species-Specific Vocalizations J Neurophysiol, February 1, 2006; 95(2): 1244 - 1262. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. Fecteau, J. L. Armony, Y. Joanette, and P. Belin Sensitivity to Voice in Human Prefrontal Cortex J Neurophysiol, September 1, 2005; 94(3): 2251 - 2254. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]