Electrophysiological correlates of the lateralization of a sound and its echo in human

Abstract

Auditory brainstem responses to monaural and binaural clicks with 23 different interaural time differences (ITDs) were recorded from ten guinea pigs without anesthesia. Binaural interaction component was obtained by subtracting the sum of the appropriately time-shifted left and right monaural responses from the binaural one. With increasing ITD, the most prominent peak of the binaural difference potential so obtained shifted to longer latencies and its amplitude gradually decreased. The way these changes depended on binaural delay was basically similar to that previously observed in a cat study [P. Ungan, S. Yagcioglu, B. Ozmen. Interaural delay-dependent changes in the binaural difference potential in cat auditory brainstem response: implications about the origin of the binaural interaction component. Hear. Res. 106 (1997) 66-82]. The data were successfully simulated by the model suggested in that report. We therefore concluded that the same model, which was based on the difference between the mean onset latencies of the ipsilateral excitation and contralateral inhibition in a typical neuron in the lateral superior olive, their standard deviations, and the duration of the contralateral inhibition, should also be valid for the binaural interaction in the guinea pig brainstem. The results, which were discussed in connection with sound lateralization models, supported a model based on population coding, where the lateral position of a sound source is coded by the ratio of the discharge intensity in the left and right lateral superior olives, rather than the models based on coincidence detection.