Correlates of deviance detection in auditory brainstem responses of bats

• Published in: The European journal of neuroscience Vol. 55; no. 6; pp. 1601 - 1613
• Main Authors: Wetekam, Johannes, Hechavarría, Julio, López‐Jury, Luciana, Kössl, Manfred
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: France Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.03.2022
• Subjects: ABR; Acoustic Stimulation; Animals; Auditory Cortex - physiology; Auditory Perception - physiology; Brain stem; Chiroptera; Cochlea; Echolocation; Evoked Potentials, Auditory - physiology; Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem; Hearing; Inferior Colliculi - physiology; Inferior colliculus; Lemniscus (lateral); MMN; prediction error; repetition suppression; Sensation; SSA; SSA; ABR; prediction error; repetition suppression; MMN
• ISSN: 0953-816X; 1460-9568
• DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15527

Identifying unexpected acoustic inputs, which allows to react appropriately to new situations, is of major importance for animals. Neural deviance detection describes a change of neural response strength to a stimulus solely caused by the stimulus' probability of occurrence. In the present study, we searched for correlates of deviance detection in auditory brainstem responses obtained in anaesthetised bats (Carollia perspicillata). In an oddball paradigm, we used two pure tone stimuli that represented the main frequencies used by the animal during echolocation (60 kHz) and communication (20 kHz). For both stimuli, we could demonstrate significant differences of response strength between deviant and standard response in slow and fast components of the auditory brainstem response. The data suggest the presence of correlates of deviance detection in brain stations below the inferior colliculus (IC), at the level of the cochlea nucleus and lateral lemniscus. Additionally, our results suggest that deviance detection is mainly driven by repetition suppression in the echolocation frequency band, while in the communication band, a deviant‐related enhancement of the response plays a more important role. This finding suggests a contextual dependence of the mechanisms underlying subcortical deviance detection. The present study demonstrates the value of auditory brainstem responses for studying deviance detection and suggests that auditory specialists, such as bats, use different frequency‐specific strategies to ensure an appropriate sensation of unexpected sounds. Using an oddball paradigm in combination with several control experiments, we investigated correlates of deviance detection in auditory brainstem responses of bats. In comparison to responses to expected standard stimuli, responses to the same stimuli presented as unexpected deviant were significantly enlarged. This effect could be shown for slow and fast components of the auditory brainstem response, with earlier appearances of deviance detection than previously known.