New Paper: Adjudicating Between Local and Global Architectures of Predictive Processing in the Subcortical Auditory Pathway

Expectations heavily influence sensory processing, aiding perception under ambiguity or noise, and biasing our perception when we hold strong believes about what we are about to perceive. Until recently, it was generally assumed that expectations only played a decisive role in computations carried in the cerebral cortex. However, research efforts during the last decade have demonstrated that expectations are also used by small nuclei located in subcortical regions. These nuclei have fast processing properties and earlier access to sensory input, but lack the general overview of the sensory world necessary to produce reliable predictions. In this paper, we review recent evidence that expectations produced in the cerebral cortex are transmitted and used for sensory processing at subcortical structures of the auditory brain. 

Tabas, A. & von Kriegstein, K. (2021). Adjudicating between local and global architectures of predictive processing in the subcortical auditory pathway. Frontiers in Neural Circuits https://doi.org/10.3389/fncir.2021.644743