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Instituto de Neurociencias de Castilla y León
923 294 400
Instituto de Neurociencias de Castilla y León
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Lab 1 – Neurociencia Auditiva y Cognitiva

Cognitive and Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory

Calle Pintor Fernando Gallego Núm. 1, 37007, Salamanca, España

Cognitive and Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory

We study the structure and function of the auditory brain. Over the last 15 years, our research has focused on the neurophysiological and neurochemical mechanisms that govern neuronal adaptacion, and the relationship between the MMN (mismatch negativity, a human brain signal altered in neuropsychiatric conditions) and its neuronal correlate, the SSA (stimulus specific adaptation). Since more recently, we study the processing of auditory information at a neuronal level from the perspective of the predictive coding theory of perception. We are currently expanding the scope of our research to cover the basic neuronal mechanisms involved in auditory learning. We investigate the behavioural consequences of auditory training, in both normal and neuropsychiatric animal models of disorders such as schizophrenia or Alzheimer’s disease. 

Finally, our lab is also concerned with the understanding of activity-dependent plasticity due to hearing loss the processing of speech and synaptopathy and How hearing loss affects Alzheimer’s Disease

Investigador principal del grupo

Dr. Manuel Sánchez Malmierca
Catedrático de Universidad
Producción Científica

David Pérez González
Investigador Postdoctoral Senior; Proyecto MINECO

Warren Baya
Investigador Postdoctoral Senior; Proyecto ERA-NET NEURON

Adam Hockley
Investigador USAL4Excellence

Ana Belén Lao Rodríguez
Investigador Postdoctoral

Jazmín Sánchez Sánchez
Investigador Predoctoral; Contrato FPI

Laura Quintela
Investigador Predoctoral; Fundación Ramón Areces

Sara Cacciato Salcedo
Investigador Predoctoral

LMIERCA, M.S., LEERGAARD, T.B., BAJO, V.M., BJAALIE, J.G., MERCHÁN, M.A. (1998) Anatomic evidence of a 3-D mosaic pattern of tonotopic organization in the ventral complex of the lateral lemniscus in cat. Journal of Neuroscience, 18:10603-10618.

MALMIERCA, M.S., MERCHAN, M.A., HENKEL, C.K., AND OLIVER, D.L. (2002). Direct projections from the dorsal cochlear nucleus to the auditory thalamus in rat. Journal of Neuroscience, 22: 10891-10897. 

MALMIERCA M.S., IZQUIERDO M.A., CRISTAUDO S., HERNÁNDEZ O., PÉREZ-GONZÁLEZ D, COVEY E. AND OLIVER D.L. (2008). A Discontinuous Tonotopic Organization in the Inferior Colliculus of the Rat. Journal of Neuroscience. 28:4767-4776.

MALMIERCA MS, CRISTAUDO S, PÉREZ-GONZÁLEZ D, COVEY E (2009). Stimulus-specific adaptation in the inferior colliculus of the rat. Journal of Neuroscience, 29:5483-5493.

ANTUNES FM, MALMIERCA M.S. (2011). Corticofugal modulation of Stimulus-specific adaptation in the medial geniculate body. Journal of Neuroscience, 31:17306-17316. 

DUQUE, D., PÉREZ-GONZÁLEZ, D., AYALA, A. Y., PALMER, A. R., AND MALMIERCA, M. S. (2012). Topographic distribution, frequency and intensity dependence of stimulus-specific adaptation in the inferior colliculus of the rat. Journal of Neuroscience. 32, 17762–17774.

AYALA Y.A.; MALMIERCA M.S: (2015). Cholinergic Modulation of Stimulus-Specific Adaptation in the Inferior Colliculus. Journal of Neuroscience. 35 – 35, pp. 12261 – 12272.

NIETO-DIEGO, J; MALMIERCA MS (2016). Topographic Distribution of SSA across the Auditory Cortex Reveals Enhanced Change Detection in Higher-Order Auditory Fields. PLOS BIOLOGY: PLoS Biol. 2016 Mar 7;14(3):e1002397. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002397.

PARRAS GG, NIETO-DIEGO J, CARBAJAL GV, VALDÉS-BAIZABAL C, ESCERA C & MALMIERCA MS* (2017). Neurons along the auditory pathway exhibit a hierarchical organization of prediction error» §author equal contribution. Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-02038-6.

CARBAJAL GV, MALMIERCA MS. (2018) The Neuronal Basis of Predictive Coding Along the Auditory Pathway: From the Subcortical Roots to Cortical Deviance Detection. Trends in Hearing. 2018. doi: 10.1177/2331216518784822.

MALMIERCA MS. NIÑO-AGUILLÓN B.E.; NIETO-DIEGO J;  PORTEROS A; PEREZ-GONZALEZ D. ESCERA C (2019) Pattern-sensitive neurons reveal encoding of complex auditory regularities in the rat inferior colliculus NeuroImage. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.10.012

CASADO-ROMÁN L, CARBAJAL GV, PÉREZ-GONZÁLEZ D, MALMIERCA MS. Prediction error signaling explains neuronal mismatch responses in the medial prefrontal cortex. PLoS Biol. 2020 Dec 21;18(12):e3001019. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001019. 

PARRAS GG, VALDÉS-BAIZABAL C, HARMS L, MICHIE PT, MALMIERCA MS. The effect of NMDA-R antagonist, MK-801, on neuronal mismatch along the rat auditory thalamocortical pathway. Sci Rep. 2020 Jul 24;10(1):12391. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-68837-y. 

VALDÉS-BAIZABAL C, CARBAJAL GV, PÉREZ-GONZÁLEZ D, MALMIERCA MS. Dopamine modulates subcortical responses to surprising sounds. PLoS Biol. 2020 Jun 19;18(6):e3000744. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000744. Erratum in: PLoS Biol. 2020 Oct 28;18(10):e3000984. 

VALDÉS-BAIZABAL C, CASADO-ROMÁN L, BARTLETT EL, MALMIERCA MS. In vivo whole-cell recordings of stimulus-specific adaptation in the inferior colliculus. Hear Res. 2021 Jan;399:107978. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2020.107978. 

PÉREZ-GONZÁLEZ D, PARRAS GG, MORADO-DÍAZ CJ, AEDO-SÁNCHEZ C, CARBAJAL GV, MALMIERCA MS. Deviance detection in physiologically identified cell types in the rat auditory cortex. Hear Res. 2021 Jan;399:107997. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2020.107997. 

MALMIERCA MS, AUKSZTULEWICZ R. Stimulus-specific adaptation, MMN and predictive coding. Hear Res. 2021 Jan;399:108076. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2020.108076. 

PARRAS GG, CASADO-ROMÁN L, SCHRÖGER E, MALMIERCA MS. The posterior auditory field is the chief generator of prediction error signals in the auditory cortex. Neuroimage. 2021 Nov 15;242:118446. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118446. Epub 2021 Aug 2. PMID: 34352393.

ANTUNES FM, MALMIERCA MS. Corticothalamic Pathways in Auditory Processing: Recent Advances and Insights From Other Sensory Systems. Front Neural Circuits. 2021 Aug 19;15:721186. doi: 10.3389/fncir.2021.721186. PMID: 34489648; PMCID: PMC8418311.

  1. Spanish Research Agency PID2019-104570RB-I00. NEUROMODULACION DE LOS ERRORES DE PREDICCION: ADAPTACION NEURO-SENSORIAL Y PREDICCIONES. June 2020-May 2023 Amount awarded: € 237.000
  1. EUROPEAN COMMISSION BRAINTWIN Development of a World-Level Neuroengineering Research Centre by European Twinning. Sep 2020-Augsut 2023 Amount awarded: € 147.000
  1. FUNDACIÓN RAMÓN ARECES. “Age-related Hearing loss and Dementia»AHeaD June 2021-May 2024 Amount awarded: € 112.000 
  1. EUROPEAN COMMISSION ERA-NET-Neuron. The Functional Role of Cochlear Synaptopathy for speech Coding in the brain. CoSySpeech. April 2021-march 2024 Amount awarded: € 147.000