Abstract #3908
High pulse rate acoustic stimulation reduces fMRI responses in the auditory thalamus and cortex of chronic noise exposed rats
Condon Lau 1 , Jevin W Zhang 2 , and Ed X Wu 2
1
Department of Physics and Materials Science,
City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR,
Hong Kong,
2
Department
of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University
of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, Hong Kong
Long-term acoustic noise exposure at moderate sound
pressure levels (SPLs) (within occupational limits) can
be detrimental to speech intelligibility by altering its
spectrotemporal representation in the auditory system.
To test this, we performed fMRI on adult rats exposed to
65dB SPL noise for two months. The results show noise
exposure reduces fMRI signals in the auditory thalamus
and cortex. The reduction is greater during 10 than 5Hz
pulse rate acoustic stimulation. These findings are
important for speech processing, which depends on
accurate processing of sounds with a wide spectrum of
rates.
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