A computer model of medial efferent suppression in the mammalian auditory system

Abstract

Stimulation of the olivocochlear bundle reduces basilar membrane displacement, driven auditory nerve activity, and compound action potential (CAP) response to acoustic stimulation. These effects were simulated using a computer model of the auditory periphery. The model simulates the medial efferent activity by attenuating the basilar membrane response. The model was evaluated against three animal studies reporting measurements at three levels of the auditory system; basilar membrane, single auditory nerve fibers and whole auditory nerve CAP. The CAP data included conditions where tones were masked by noise and "unmasked" by stimulation of the olivocochlear bundle. The model was able to simulate the data both qualitatively and quantitatively. As a consequence, it may be a suitable platform for studying the contribution of the efferent system to auditory processing of more complex auditory sounds in distracting backgrounds.