Locastro, MichaelPrevious studies have shown attention related transient changes induced during auditory discrimination behavioral tasks in primary auditory cortex (A1). This study involved awake, behaving ferrets performing similar auditory tasks with negative reinforcement; however, recordings were focused on higher-order cortical areas to understand what, if any, plastic effects exist and how they compare with A1. Although neurons in the posterior ectosylvian gyrus (PEG) exhibit similar tuning properties and conform to a tonotopic mapping consistent with prior findings, these areas enhance selectivity to target stimuli. The neurophysiological recordings from A1, PEG, and frontal cortex were then compared using the local field potential (LFP). This analysis focused on the response-power changes within these recordings and findings were consistent with single unit trends.enThesisNeurosciencesElectrical engineeringauditorybehaviorcortexmultitaperplasticityspectrogram