Abstract
Sensory perception is a product of interactions between the internal state of an organism and the physical attributes of a stimulus. It has been shown across the animal kingdom that perception and sensory-evoked physiological responses are modulated depending on whether or not the stimulus is the consequence of voluntary actions. These phenomena are often attributed to motor signals sent to relevant sensory regions that convey information about upcoming sensory consequences. However, the neurophysiological signature of action-locked modulations in sensory cortex, and their relationship with perception, is still unclear. In the current study, we recorded neurophysiological (using Magnetoencephalography) and behavioral responses from 16 healthy subjects performing an auditory detection task of faint tones. Tones were either generated by subjects' voluntary button presses or occurred predictably following a visual cue. By introducing a constant temporal delay between button press/cue and tone delivery, and applying source-level analysis, we decoupled action-locked and auditory-locked activity in auditory cortex. We show action-locked evoked-responses in auditory cortex following sound-triggering actions and preceding sound onset. Such evoked-responses were not found for button-presses that were not coupled with sounds, or sounds delivered following a predictive visual cue. Our results provide evidence for efferent signals in human auditory cortex that are locked to voluntary actions coupled with future auditory consequences.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 5560-5569 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Cerebral Cortex |
Volume | 31 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 22 Oct 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2021 The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected].
Funding
The Israel Science Foundation (2392/19 to R.M.); the Binational Science Foundation (BSF) (2015385 to E.Z.G.); Sagol School of Neuroscience and the Israeli Presidential Honorary Scholarship for Neuroscience Research (to D.R.).
Funders | Funder number |
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Israeli Presidential Honorary Scholarship for Neuroscience Research | |
Sagol School of Neuroscience | |
United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation | 2015385 |
Israel Science Foundation | 2392/19 |
Keywords
- MEG
- auditory perception
- motor-sensory interactions
- voluntary actions