Origin of the neurophonic: Linear summation of the monaural responses predicts the binaural response in the nucleus laminaris of the barn owl

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Origin of the neurophonic: Linear summation of the monaural responses predicts the binaural response in the nucleus laminaris of the barn owl Paula Kuokkanen1*, Catherine Carr2, Hermann Wagner3 and Richard Kempter1, 4 1 Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Computational Neuroscience, Germany 2 University of Maryland, Department of Biology, United States 3 RWTH Aachen, Institute for Biology II, Germany 4 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institute for Theoretical Biology, Department of Biology, Germany The neurophonic potential is a frequency-following extracellular potential that can be recorded e.g. in the network formed by the nucleus magnocellularis (NM) and the nucleus laminaris (NL) in the brainstem of the barn owl. The neurophonic has a temporal precision below 100 microseconds. Putative generators of the neurophonic are the activity of afferent axons from NM, synaptic activation onto NL neurons, and spikes of NL neurons. The source of the neurophonic has not been identified yet but a high number of independent sources (> 300) is needed for its the generation [1]; spike sorting is not possible. We hypothesize that the input to NL, i.e. NM axons and their synapses, are the origin of the high-frequency (> 3 kHz) component of the neurophonic whereas the output of NL, i.e. the spikes of the NL neurons may contribute to the weaker low-frequency (0.5-2 kHz) component. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed monaural and binaural in-vivo responses to acoustic stimulation with tones. The figure shows the power spectral density (PSD) of a response to a 4.8 kHz stimulus. A prediction of our hypothesis is that a linear combination of two monaural responses matches the binaural response. We analyzed several features of the response, some showing tuning of the interaural time difference (ITD) such as the peak of the PSD, and others that turned out to be uncorrelated to ITD such as the noise level in the PSD. All features were highly correlated between the linear prediction and the measured binaural response. In particular, it was not necessary to consider the nonlinear responses of NL coincidence detector neurons, whose firing rate and synchrony strongly depend on ITD. Our results support the hypothesis that the input to NL is the origin of the high-frequency component of the neurophonic. Figure 1 References [1] Kuokkanen, Wagner, Ashida, Carr, Kempter (2010) On the origin of the extracellular field potential in the nucleus laminaris of the barn owl (Tyto alba), J Neurophysiol, doi:10.1152/jn.00395.2010 (in press) Keywords: computational neuroscience Conference: Bernstein Conference on Computational Neuroscience, Berlin, Germany, 27 Sep - 1 Oct, 2010. Presentation Type: Presentation Topic: Bernstein Conference on Computational Neuroscience Citation: Kuokkanen P, Carr C, Wagner H and Kempter R (2010). Origin of the neurophonic: Linear summation of the monaural responses predicts the binaural response in the nucleus laminaris of the barn owl. Front. Comput. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Bernstein Conference on Computational Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.fncom.2010.51.00011 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 07 Sep 2010; Published Online: 22 Sep 2010. * Correspondence: Dr. Paula Kuokkanen, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Computational Neuroscience, Berlin, Germany, p.kuokkanen@biologie.hu-berlin.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Paula Kuokkanen Catherine Carr Hermann Wagner Richard Kempter Google Paula Kuokkanen Catherine Carr Hermann Wagner Richard Kempter Google Scholar Paula Kuokkanen Catherine Carr Hermann Wagner Richard Kempter PubMed Paula Kuokkanen Catherine Carr Hermann Wagner Richard Kempter Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.