ELSC Seminar Series

Chronic stress, a prevalent experience in modern society, is a major risk factor for many psychiatric and sensory disorders. Although these disorders often present perceptual abnormalities, little is known about how chronic stress affects sensory processing and perception. We combined chronic stress, longitudinal measurement of cortical activity, and auditory-guided behaviors to investigate the modulation of sound processing and perception under chronic stress conditions. We found that chronic stress induces changes in sound processing, enhancing specificity and reducing sound-evoked activity in a level-dependent manner. These modifications in sound processing led to the modulation of certain aspects of perception, assessed through behavior, modulating loudness perception, and frequency discrimination while leaving tone detection in noisy environments unaffected. Additionally, our work reveals that the impact of stress on perception evolves gradually as the stressor persists over time, emphasizing the dynamic and evolving nature of this relationship.