Deviance Detection to Natural Stimuli in Population Responses of the Brainstem of Bats
Deviance detection describes an increase of neural response strength caused by a stimulus with a low probability of occurrence. This ubiquitous phenomenon has been reported for humans and multiple other species, from subthalamic areas to the auditory cortex. Cortical deviance detection has been well characterized by a range of studies using a variety of different stimuli, from artificial to natural, with and without a behavioral relevance. This allowed the identification of a broad variety of regularity deviations that are detected by the cortex. Moreover, subcortical deviance detection has been studied with simple stimuli that are not meaningful to the subject. Here, we aim to bridge this gap by using noninvasively recorded auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) to investigate deviance detection at population level in the lower stations of the auditory system of a highly vocal species: the bat Carollia perspicillata (of either sex). Our present approach uses behaviorally relevant vocaliz