蝙蝠中脑中的空间集群神经元编码发声类别，这一成果由美国约翰霍普金斯大学Kishore V. Kuchibhotla小组经过不懈努力而取得。这一研究成果发表在2025年4月14日出版的国际学术期刊《自然—神经科学》上。

本文对清醒回声定位蝙蝠（Eptesicthem of themcthem）进行了双光子钙成像，以研究下丘脑的发声表征，下丘脑距离内耳只有两个突触。回声定位蝙蝠依靠基于频率扫描的发声来进行社会交流和导航。听觉回放实验表明，单个神经元对社交或导航呼叫有选择性地做出反应，从而使机器人能够跨类别进行种群水平的解码。当社交呼叫以等距离的步进增量转变为导航呼叫时，单个神经元表现出类似开关的特性，种群水平的反应模式在类别边界急剧转变。引人注目的是，类别选择性神经元在下丘背皮层形成了独立于拓扑的空间细胞。这些发现支持了一种修订后的分类加工观点，即在听觉层次的早期，与动物行为学相关的特定声音通道在空间上是分离的，从而使皮层下组织迅速成为分类原语。

据悉，发声的快速分类使得跨物种的适应性行为成为可能。虽然分类知觉被认为是在新皮层中产生的，但人类和动物可以从听觉通路中早期与行为学相关的声音处理的功能组织中受益。

附：英文原文

Title: Spatially clustered neurons in the bat midbrain encode vocalization categories

Author: Lawlor, Jennifer, Wohlgemuth, Melville J., Moss, Cynthia F., Kuchibhotla, Kishore V.

Issue&Volume: 2025-04-14

Abstract: Rapid categorization of vocalizations enables adaptive behavior across species. While categorical perception is thought to arise in the neocortex, humans and animals could benefit from a functional organization tailored to ethologically relevant sound processing earlier in the auditory pathway. Here we developed two-photon calcium imaging in the awake echolocating bat (Eptesicus fuscus) to study the representation of vocalizations in the inferior colliculus, which is as few as two synapses from the inner ear. Echolocating bats rely on frequency-sweep-based vocalizations for social communication and navigation. Auditory playback experiments demonstrated that individual neurons responded selectively to social or navigation calls, enabling robust population-level decoding across categories. When social calls were morphed into navigation calls in equidistant step-wise increments, individual neurons showed switch-like properties and population-level response patterns sharply transitioned at the category boundary. Strikingly, category-selective neurons formed spatial clusters, independent of tonotopy within the dorsal cortex of the inferior colliculus. These findings support a revised view of categorical processing in which specified channels for ethologically relevant sounds are spatially segregated early in the auditory hierarchy, enabling rapid subcortical organization into categorical primitives.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-025-01932-3

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-025-01932-3