Figure 5.

Cortical Reweighting of Auditory Spatial Cues

(A) Setup used for bilateral A1 recordings, with recording sites illustrated as light blue circles. Virtual acoustic space stimuli were presented to both ears and alternated between conditions that recreated normal spatial cues or a virtual earplug in the left ear (red).

(B) Frequency-dependent attenuation by the virtual earplug.

(C) Azimuth response profile (mean rate ± SEM) for an A1 unit that was sensitive to the virtual earplug is plotted for both normal hearing (blue) and left virtual earplug (red) conditions. The virtual azimuth angles correspond to the left-ear spectral cue values associated with each location, with the data collapsed across the spatial cues values provided by the other ear.

(D) Joint distributions of spike count and left-ear virtual azimuth for the unit shown in (C), with colors indicating the number of trials for each virtual-azimuth-spike-count combination. Azimuth response profiles (mean count ± SEM) are plotted in white.

(E) Weighting index values (mean ± 95% confidence intervals) for all driven units in juvenile-plugged (black) and control (gray) animals. Higher values indicate that more weight was given to the spatial cues provided to the intact ear.