Human Exploration of Enclosed Spaces through Echolocation

Flanagin, Virginia L.; Schörnich, Sven; Schranner, Michael; Hummel, Nadine; Wallmeier, Ludwig; Wahlberg, Magnus; Stephan, Thomas und Wiegrebe, Lutz (2017): Human Exploration of Enclosed Spaces through Echolocation. In: Journal of Neuroscience, Bd. 37, Nr. 6: S. 1614-1627

Abstract

Someblind humans have developed echolocation, as a method of navigation in space. Echolocation is a truly active sense because subjects analyze echoes of dedicated, self-generated sounds to assess space around them. Using a special virtual space technique, we assess how humans perceive enclosed spaces through echolocation, thereby revealing the interplay between sensory and vocal-motor neural activity while humans perform this task. Sighted subjects were trained to detect small changes in virtual-room size analyzing real-time generated echoes of their vocalizations. Individual differences in performance were related to the type and number of vocalizations produced. We then asked subjects to estimate virtual-room size with either active or passive sounds while measuring their brain activity with fMRI. Subjects were better at estimating room size when actively vocalizing. This was reflected in the hemodynamic activity of vocal-motor cortices, even after individual motor and sensory components were removed. Activity in these areas also varied with perceived room size, although the vocal-motor output was unchanged. In addition, thalamic and auditory-midbrain activity was correlated with perceived room size;a likely result of top-down auditory pathways for human echolocation, comparable with those described in echolocating bats. Our data provide evidence that human echolocation is supported by active sensing, both behaviorally and in terms of brain activity. The neural sensory-motor coupling complements the fundamental acoustic motor-sensory coupling via the environment in echolocation.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Biologie > Department Biologie II > Neurobiologie
• Themengebiete: 600 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften > 610 Medizin und Gesundheit ; 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 570 Biowissenschaften; Biologie
• ISSN: 0270-6474
• Sprache: Englisch