Josef Syka & Michael M. Merzenich 
Plasticity and Signal Representation in the Auditory System 

The symposium that has provided the basis for this book, ‘Plasticity of the Central Auditory System and Processing of Complex Acoustic Signals’ was held in Prague on July 7-10, 2003. This is the fourth in a series of seminal meetings summarizing the state of development of auditory system neuroscience that has been organized in that great world city. Books that have resulted from these meetings represent important benchmarks for auditory neuroscience over the past 25 years. A 1980 meeting, ‘Neuronal Mechanisms of Hearing’ hosted the most distinguished hearing researchers focusing on underlying brain processes from this era. It resulted in a highly influential and widely subscribed and cited proceedings co-edited by professor Lindsay Aitkin. The subject of the 1987 meeting was the ‘Auditory Pathway – Structure and Function’. It again resulted in another important update of hearing science research in a widely referenced book – edited by the late Bruce Masterton. While the original plan was to hold a meeting summarizing the state of auditory system neuroscience every 7 years, historical events connected with the disintegration of the Soviet Empire and return of freedom to Czechoslovakia resulted in an unavoidable delay of what was planned to be a 1994 meeting. It wasn’t until 1996 that we were able to meet for the third time in Prague, at that time to review ‘Acoustical Signal Processing in the Central Auditory System’.

Table of Content

Contents PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE AUDITORY PROCESSING Interaural Time Difference Processing Alan R. Palmer, and Benedikt Grothe Interplay of Excitation and Inhibition in Auditory Brainstem Processing at Endbulbs of Held of the MNTB and AVCN Susanne Dehmel, Cornelia Kopp-Scheinpflug, and Rudolf Rübsamen Topographic Representation of Periodicity Information: The 2nd Neural Axis of the Auditory System Gerald Langner Complex Frequency Tuning of Neurons in the Mouse Inferior Colliculus Christine V. Portfors Role of KCC2 in Auditory Processing of the Brainstem Motoi Kudo, Takaaki Nakamura, and Kiyoshi Kurokawa Spatial and Functional Properties of Neuronal Responses to Simulated Sound Source Motion in the Inferior Colliculus of the Cat Elena A. Radionova Temporal and Rate Representations of Time-Varying Signals in Auditory Cortex Xiaoqin Wang, Thomas Lu, and Li Liang Communication-Call Representation in the Mouse Auditory Cortex: Perception vs. Recognition Günter Ehret, and Diana B. Geissler PLASTICITY OF THE AUDITORY SYSTEM IN EXPERIMENTAL ANIMALS Molecular Mechanisms in Deafness Related Auditory Brain Stem Plasticity Richard A. Altschuler, Avril Genene Holt, Mikiya Asako, Catherine A. Lomax, Margaret I. Lomax, and Jose Juiz Challenges to a Neuroanatomical Theory of Forebrain Auditory Plasticity Jeffery A. Winer, Charles C. Lee, Kazuo Imaizumi, and Christoph E. Schreiner Rewiring Cortex: Functional Plasticity of the Auditory Cortex During Development Jessica R. Newton, and Mriganka Sur Plasticity of Tonotopic and Correlation Maps in Cat Primary Auditory Cortex Jos J. Eggermont Small Cochlear Damage Causes Unmasking and Plasticity in Supra-Threshold Cortical Responses Ramish Rajan Changes in Auditory Function Following Auditory Cortex Inactivation Josef Syka, Jirí Popelár, Natalia Rybalko, Fidel C. Nwabueze-Ogbo, Jana Mazelová, and Daniel Šuta Plastic Changes in the Primary Auditory Cortex in Cochlear Implanted Deaf Cats Rainer Klinke, Andrej Kral, Silvia Heid, and Rainer Hartmann Input Desynchronization and Impaired Columnar Activation in Deprived Auditory Cortex Revealed by Independent Component Analysis Peter Hubka, Andrej Kral, and Rainer Klinke Temporal Firing Activities of Auditory Cortical Neurons and Modification of Their Activities by Laser Irradiation Hiroshi Riquimaroux, and Yosky Kataoka Neurodynamics in Auditory Cortex During Category Learning Frank W. Ohl, Wolfram Wetzel, Matthias Deliano, Henning Scheich, and Walter J. Freeman Comparison of Two Rat Models of Aging Jeremy G. Turner, and Donald M. Caspary Age-Related Changes in Cochlear Function in Young and Adult Fischer 344 Rats Jirí Popelár, Daniel Groh, and Josef Syka PSYCHOACOUSTICS, SPEECH AND MUSIC PERCEPTION Psychoacoustics and Working Memory in Dyslexia Karen Banai, and Merav Ahissar Frequency and Intensity Discrimination in Dyslexia Gal Ben-Yehudah, Karen Banai, and Merav Ahissar Speech Perception in Noise Among Learning Disabled Teenagers Hanna Putter-Katz, Karen Banai, and Merav Ahissar How Can the Neural Encoding and Perception of Speech be Improved? Trent Nicol, and Nina Kraus Hemispheric Processing of Prosody Venu Balasubramanian, and Ludo Max Auditory Cortex Processing Streams: Where Are They and What Do They Do? Robert J. Zatorre, and