Previous research has demonstrated that auditory cortical neurons can modify their receptive fields when animals engage in auditory detection tasks. We tested for this form of task-related plasticity in the inferior colliculus (IC) of ferrets trained to detect a pure tone target in a sequence of noise distractors that did not overlap in time. During behavior, responses were suppressed at the ta...

The autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) produces tingling sensations induced by sounds and accompanied positive emotions, whereas in misophonia, everyday provoke maladaptive behaviors negative emotions. People with autism spectrum disorders sometimes suffer hyperacusis. However, it is unknown whether the three types of auditory-related reactions are interdependent. We investigated ASMR,...

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) constitute a single continuum of neurodevelopmental disabilities with multifactorial etiology and significant individual variability according to the recently published Diagnostic and statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V (DSM-V) [1]. ASD is characterized by a rising prevalence, currently amounting to 11/1000 [2] but expected to slightly decrease due to DSM-V c...

OBJECTIVE To examine the relationship between the maturation of central auditory pathways and the development of canonical (speechlike) babbling in infants with cochlear implants. DESIGN Comparison of the latencies of the P1 cortical auditory evoked potential and vocalizations produced by subjects before they were fitted with a cochlear implant and at several time points within the first year...

Low threshold Ca2+ currents mediated by T-type channels underlie burst spike activities of relay neurons in the thalamus. We have previously reported that knock-out mice for T-type channels show an enhanced nociceptive response to visceral pain, accompanied by an increase in tonic spikes in the absence of burst spikes in thalamic relay neurons. These results raised a possibility that T-type cha...

Oscillatory instability at the Hopf bifurcation is a dynamical phenomenon that has been suggested to characterize active non-linear processes observed in the auditory system. Networks of oscillators poised near Hopf bifurcation points and tuned to tonotopically distributed frequencies have been used as models of auditory processing at various levels, but systematic investigation of the dynamica...

Sound is essential to enhance visual experience and human robot interaction, but usually most research and development efforts are made mainly towards sound generation, speech synthesis and speech recognition. The reason why only a little attention has been paid on auditory scene analysis is that real-time perception of a mixture of sounds is difficult. Recently, Nakadai et al have developed re...

Active object exploration is one of the hallmarks of human and animal intelligence. Research in psychology has shown that the use of multiple exploratory behaviors is crucial for learning about objects. Inspired by such research, recent work in robotics has demonstrated that by performing multiple exploratory behaviors a robot can dramatically improve its object recognition rate. But what is th...