Neural Correlates of Learning Pure Tones or Natural Sounds in the Auditory Cortex

Associative learning of pure tones is known to cause tonotopic map expansion in the auditory cortex (ACx), but the function this plasticity sub-serves is unclear. We developed an automated training platform called the ‘Educage’, which was used to train mice on a go/no-go auditory discrimination task to their perceptual limits, for difficult discriminations among pure tones or natural sounds. Spiking responses of excitatory and inhibitory...