Tonotopic Organization of the Cat Auditory Cortex for Some Complex Stimuli

Abstract

There is psychophysical evidence that both spectrum and periodicity of acoustic signals may be cues for pitch judgments. At the level of the auditory nerve, these stimulus characteristics seem to be coded in terms of place and time pattern. Very little is known of their representation higher levels of the nervous system. Tonotopic organization of the auditory cortex has been demonstrated in anesthetized cats by the evoked strychnine potential technique. In these demonstrations only tonal stimuli were used. We use similar physiological preparations but employ acoustic stimuli that permit independent manipulation of spectrum and periodicity. The results show that the previously reported tonotopic organization is based only upon spectral characteristics of the stimulus.