Dynamics of phase-independent spectro-temporal tuning in primary auditory cortex of the awake ferret

Tuning of cortical neurons is often measured as a static property, or during a steady-state regime, despite a number of studies suggesting that tuning depends on when it is measured during a neuron's response (e.g., onset vs. sustained vs. offset). We have previously shown that phase-locked tuning to feature transients evolves as a dynamic quantity from the onset of the sound. In this follow-up study, we examined the phase-independent tuning during feature transients. Based on previous results, we hypothesized phase-independent tuning should evolve on the same timescale as phase-locked tuning. We used stimuli of constant level, but alternating between flat spectro-temporal envelope and a modulated envelope with well-defined spectral density and temporal periodicity. This allowed the measure of changes in tuning to novel spectro-temporal content, as happens during running speech and other sounds with rapid transitions without a confounding change in sound level. For 95% of neurons, tuning changed significantly from the onset, over the course of the response. For a majority of these cells, the change occurred within the first 40 ms following a feature onset, often even around 10-20 ms. This solidifies the idea that tuning can change rapidly from onset tuning to the sustained, steady-state tuning.

► Neural tuning in auditory cortex has dynamics over short time scales. ► We show tuning is different between the onset and sustained parts of a sound. ► Tuning has dynamics over tens of ms when new spectro-temporal content is presented. ► There is an interesting region of dynamical tuning post spectro-temporal transients. ► We need to revisit our concept of tuning in continuous cases such as running speech.