Journal
HEARING RESEARCH
Volume 216, Issue -, Pages 90-99Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2006.01.006
Keywords
auditory; cochlear nucleus; pathways; trigeminal; reticular formation; somatosensory; non-auditory projections
Funding
- NIDCD NIH HHS [P30 DC005188, R01 DC004825, P30 DC-05188] Funding Source: Medline
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Interactions between somatosensory and auditory systems occur at peripheral levels in the central nervous system. The cochlear nucleus (CN) receives innervation from trigeminal sensory structures: the ophthalmic division of the trigerninal ganglion and the caudal and interpolar regions of the spinal trigerninal nucleus (Sp51 and Sp5C). These projections terminate primarily in the granule cell domain, but also in magnocellular regions of the ventral and dorsal CN. Additionally, new evidence is presented demonstrating that cells in the lateral paragiganticular regions of the reticular formation (RE) also project to the CN. Not unlike the responses obtained from electrically stimulating the trigeminal system, stimulating RF regions can also result in excitation/inhibition of dorsal CN neurons. The origins and central connections of these projection neurons are associated with systems controlling vocalization and respiration. Electrical stimulation of trigeminal and RF projection neurons can suppress acoustically driven activity of not only CN neurons, but also neurons in the inferior colliculus. Together with the anatomical observations, these physiological observations suggest that one function of somatosensory input to the auditory system is to suppress responses to expected body-generated sounds such as vocalization or respiration. This would serve to enhance responses to unexpected external ly-generated sounds, such as the vocalizations of other animals. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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