Behavioral discrimination between ascending versus descending FM sweeps lowers the thresholds of auditory brainstem responses in good learner rats
Abstract
In many animal studies, neural correlates of behavioral discrimination have been found in the auditory cortex whereas much less studies have looked for such correlates in subcortical auditory structures. In contrast with the paucity of the investigations in the animal literature, many human studies have reported modifications of brainstem responses during either longlasting or relatively short-lasting training, mostly using the Frequency Following Responses (FFR) as neural index of plasticity. Here, we quantified the threshold of Auditory Brainstem Responses (ABR) before and after a behavioral discrimination between large spectrum ascending and descending FM sweeps. We found lower ABR thresholds in good learners but no effect in bad learners. These lowered thresholds in good learners were observed neither after pure tones discrimination nor after discrimination between amplitude modulated white noises, nor after passive exposure to FM sweeps. These results suggest that plastic changes can occur within the auditory brainstem after a behavioral discrimination involving broad spectrum stimuli and that these changes might potentially contribute to the plasticity detected in the thalamo-cortical auditory system.
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BibTeX
@misc{adenis2026behavioral,
title = {{Behavioral discrimination between ascending versus descending FM sweeps lowers the thresholds of auditory brainstem responses in good learner rats}},
author = {Victor Adenis and Estefania Bernal Melendez and Karina Gonçalves Gaspar and Florian Occelli and Quentin Gaucher and Jean-Marc Edeline},
howpublished = {HAL},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05801859v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-SA 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Behavioral discrimination between ascending versus descending FM sweeps lowers the thresholds of auditory brainstem responses in good learner rats
AU - Victor Adenis
AU - Estefania Bernal Melendez
AU - Karina Gonçalves Gaspar
AU - Florian Occelli
AU - Quentin Gaucher
AU - Jean-Marc Edeline
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/15
PB - HAL
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05801859v1
AB - In many animal studies, neural correlates of behavioral discrimination have been found in the auditory cortex whereas much less studies have looked for such correlates in subcortical auditory structures. In contrast with the paucity of the investigations in the animal literature, many human studies have reported modifications of brainstem responses during either longlasting or relatively short-lasting training, mostly using the Frequency Following Responses (FFR) as neural index of plasticity. Here, we quantified the threshold of Auditory Brainstem Responses (ABR) before and after a behavioral discrimination between large spectrum ascending and descending FM sweeps. We found lower ABR thresholds in good learners but no effect in bad learners. These lowered thresholds in good learners were observed neither after pure tones discrimination nor after discrimination between amplitude modulated white noises, nor after passive exposure to FM sweeps. These results suggest that plastic changes can occur within the auditory brainstem after a behavioral discrimination involving broad spectrum stimuli and that these changes might potentially contribute to the plasticity detected in the thalamo-cortical auditory system.
ER -