Units In Cochlear Nucleus Research Articles

Unit responses in the cochlear nucleus of the rat to sweep tones.

AbstractUnit discharges in the cochlear nucleus of the rat have been studied in response to stimulation with continuous tones whose frequency was changed linearly at different rates (sweep tones). At low sweep rates the distribution of discharges as a function of tone frequency was an expression of the unit's response area. When the rate of frequency change was increased the response areas of the unit became narrower. At a certain sweep rate the probability of firing, within a narrow frequency range around the units' CF, reached a maximum value which was several times greater than that found for low sweep speed. The direction of the change in tone frequency had no significant influence on the results and the average firing rate appeared to be independent of the sweep rate. These results indicate that spectral resolution of cochlear nucleus units was enhanced at a certain rate of frequency change. Additional experiments showed that the enhancement of spectral resolution at a certain rate of frequency change remains upon introduction of masking wide band noise.

Unit responses in the cochlear nucleus of the rat to pure tones.

AbstractThe response patterns are described of cochlear nucleus units (termed rat transient units) which only responded to a tone burst with a single discharge evoked immediately after the onset. When these cells were stimulated with bursts of repetitive clicks such units showed a marked selectivity to the click repetition rate. At a low click repetition rate one discharge was evoked for each click but this one to one relationship failed rapidly when the click rate was increased slightly above a given click repetition rate. Any additional increase in click rate resulted in only a single discharge fired immediately after the onset of a click burst and thus resembling these units' response to tone bursts. By replacing the click sounds by short bursts of pure tones presented repetitively it was shown that rat transient units were not selective to repetition rate per se, but rather, to the duration of silent interval between successive sounds. The activity of these units to click stimulation could be inhibited by broad band noise or by pure tones within certain frequency limits. Furthermore, these units showed a spectral selectivity which appeared when the stimulation was pure tones or band‐pass filtered clicks. The spectral region of highest sensitivity varied among the individual units in the range from 5 to 20 kHz and was thus widely different from the critical repetition rate for click stimulation. The latter rate was found to vary from 200 to 800 clicks per second in different units.These findings may thus explain why, in psychoacoustic experiments, repetitive presentation of short sounds results in a pitch perception which is dependent on the length of the silent period between successive sounds.

Olivocohlear bundle stimulation: effect on spontaneous and tone-evoked activities of single units in cat cochlear nucleus.

Olivocohlear bundle stimulation: effect on spontaneous and tone-evoked activities of single units in cat cochlear nucleus.A Starr, and J S WernickA Starr, and J S WernickPublished Online:01 Jul 1968https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.1968.31.4.549MoreSectionsPDF (3 MB)Download PDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesGet permissionsTrack citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInWeChat Previous Back to Top Next Download PDF FiguresReferencesRelatedInformation Cited ByOrganization of inhibitory feed-forward synapses from the dorsal to the ventral cochlear nucleus in the cat: a quantitative analysis of endings by vesicle morphologyHearing Research, Vol. 198, No. 1-2Dual action of olivocochlear collaterals in the guinea pig cochlear nucleusHearing Research, Vol. 174, No. 1-2Role of acoustic striae in hearing: Mechanism for enhancement of sound detection in catsHearing Research, Vol. 73, No. 2Effects of bilateral lesions of auditory cortex in mice on the acoustic startle responsePhysiology & Behavior, Vol. 54, No. 6Descending projections to the dorsal and ventral divisions of the cochlear nucleus in guinea pigHearing Research, Vol. 52, No. 1Encoding of amplitude modulation in the gerbil cochlear nucleus: II. Possible neural mechanismsHearing Research, Vol. 44, No. 2-3Coordinated activity of neuron pairs in anesthetized rat dorsal cochlear nucleusBrain Research, Vol. 497, No. 1Short-latency auditory evoked potentials in the monkey. II. Intracranial generatorsElectroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, Vol. 64, No. 1Effects of acetylcholine on cochlear nucleus neuronsExperimental Neurology, Vol. 82, No. 2Effects of large brain stem lesions on the cholinergic system in the rat cochlear nucleusHearing Research, Vol. 11, No. 2Suppression of the auditory frequency following response during visual attentionElectroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, Vol. 49, No. 3-4Axons from non-cochlear sources in the anteroventral cochlear nucleus of the cat. A study with the rapid golgi methodNeuroscience, Vol. 3, No. 11Auditory nerve fiber activity influenced by contralateral ear sound stimulationExperimental Neurology, Vol. 59, No. 1Activity of the auditory system related to cortical arousalExperimental Neurology, Vol. 55, No. 3Cochlear nucleus innervation by central norepinephrine neurons in the ratBrain Research, Vol. 118, No. 3The release of acetylcholine from the cochlear nucleus upon stimulation of the crossed olivo-cochlear bundleNeuropharmacology, Vol. 13, No. 7The physiology of auditory frequency analysisProgress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, Vol. 28Dorsal cochlear nucleus of the chinchilla: Excitation by contralateral soundBrain Research, Vol. 62, No. 1An electrophysiological study. The origin of the crossed olivocochlear bundleExperimental Neurology, Vol. 39, No. 2Progressive changes in auditory response patterns to repeated tone during normal wakefulness and paralysisBrain Research, Vol. 16, No. 1Progressive alterations in cochlear nucleus, inferior colliculus, and medial geniculate responses during acoustic habituationExperimental Neurology, Vol. 25, No. 1 More from this issue > Volume 31Issue 4July 1968Pages 549-64 https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.1968.31.4.549PubMed5709871History Published online 1 July 1968 Published in print 1 July 1968 Metrics

Olivocochlear Bundle Regulation of Spontaneous and Tone-Evoked Activities of Single Units in Cochlear Nucleus

132 units were recorded extracellularly in 19 decerebrate unanesthetized cats paralyzed with Flaxedil. Tetanic electrical olivocochlear bundle stimulation at the facial genu (20–200-μA, 0.1-msec pulses, 200/sec) decreased spontaneous discharge rates in 30% of the units, increased it in 18% and had no effect in 52%. Effects of olivocochlear bundle stimulation on tone-evoked responses (Tone bursts, 200 msec in duration, rise and fall times of 25 msec) were analyzed with the units' “best” frequency presented at different intensities. Three types of response modifications occurred. (1) Decrease in discharge rate equivalent to a 5–10-dB shift in the intensity function; (2) increase in discharge rate, and (3) either a decrease or increase in firing rate as a function of tone intensity. The unit's threshold presence of inhibitory surround, and the type of intensity function (montonic or nonmontonic) were correlated with these response modifications. Experiments on animals with cochleas acutely destroyed showed olivocochlear bundle stimulation to still be effective in modifying spontaneous discharges in cochlear nucleus. We conclude that olivocochlear bundle has a direct effect on cochlear nucleus in addition to its well-known receptor effects.

Retinal ganglion cell response to sinusoidal light stimulation.

Retinal ganglion cell response to sinusoidal light stimulation.G W Hughes, and L MaffeiG W Hughes, and L MaffeiPublished Online:01 May 1966https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.1966.29.3.333MoreSectionsPDF (3 MB)Download PDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesGet permissionsTrack citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInWeChat Back to Top Next Download PDF FiguresReferencesRelatedInformation Cited ByComponent analysis of the responses of sensory neurons to combined sinusoidal and triangular stimulationJournal of Neuroscience Methods, Vol. 53, No. 2An analysis of the VEP to luminance modulation and of its nonlinearityVision Research, Vol. 32, No. 8A new statistic for steady-state evoked potentialsElectroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, Vol. 78, No. 5Representation of edges of variable blur by neuronal responses in the lateral geniculate body and the visual cortex of cats: Limits of linear predictionVision Research, Vol. 27, No. 10Temporal information processing in cones: Effects of light adaptation on temporal summation and modulationVision Research, Vol. 25, No. 9EEG changes induced by light stimuli modulated with the subject's alpha rhythmElectroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, Vol. 49, No. 1-2Transfer properties of rod and cone cells in the retina of the tiger salamanderVision Research, Vol. 16, No. 4The unresponsive regions of visual cortical receptive fieldsVision Research, Vol. 16, No. 10Stabilization of alpha frequency by sinusoidally modulated lightElectroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, Vol. 39, No. 5Temporal modulation sensitivity of the cat — II evoked potential estimatesVision Research, Vol. 15, No. 5Color-dependent distribution of spikes in single optic tract fibers of the catVision Research, Vol. 14, No. 6Statistical evaluation of the dynamic properties of cochlear nucleus units using stimuli modulated with pseudorandom noiseBrain Research, Vol. 57, No. 2The visual cortex as a spatial frequency analyserVision Research, Vol. 13, No. 7Lateral geniculate body response to a variable stimulus frequencyExperimental Neurology, Vol. 38, No. 2A relationship between the detection of size, rate, orientation and direction in the human visual systemVision Research, Vol. 13, No. 1The estimation of the frequency response function of a mechanoreceptorKybernetik, Vol. 11, No. 1Flicker adaptation—II. effect on the apparent brightness of intermittent lightsVision Research, Vol. 12, No. 4Adapting coincidence scalers and neural modelling studies of visionKybernetik, Vol. 8, No. 3The concepts of scaling and refractoriness in psychophysical theories of visionKybernetik, Vol. 8, No. 3The relationship between response characteristics to flicker stimulation and receptive field organization in the cat's optic nerve fibersVision Research, Vol. 11, No. 3Spike amplitude modulation at high stimulation frequenciesKybernetik, Vol. 8, No. 2Alpha-like activity in visionBrain Research, Vol. 25, No. 1Electroretinogram and spike activity in mammalian retinaVision Research, Vol. 11Dynamic characteristics of visual evoked potentials in the dog. I. Cortical and subcortical potentials evoked by sine wave modulated lightElectroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, Vol. 29, No. 3The transformation induced by light stimulus on the retinal discharge: Study of the interval distribution at high frequencies of sinusoidal stimulationKybernetik, Vol. 6, No. 5Rectification in the goldfish retina: Analysis by sinusoidal and auxiliary stimulationVision Research, Vol. 9, No. 12Inhibitory and facilitatory spatial interactions in retinal receptive fieldsVision Research, Vol. 8, No. 9The flash-evoked afterdischargeBrain Research, Vol. 9, No. 2Flicker and the stabilised retinal imageVision Research, Vol. 8, No. 6Amplitude modulation of the retinal ganglion cell impulsesKybernetik, Vol. 4, No. 2Statistical independence of events in neighboring retinal unitsBrain Research, Vol. 2, No. 4 More from this issue > Volume 29Issue 3May 1966Pages 333-52 https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.1966.29.3.333PubMed5961154History Published online 1 May 1966 Published in print 1 May 1966 Metrics

Excitatory and inhibitory response areas of auditory neurons in the cochlear nucleus.

Excitatory and inhibitory response areas of auditory neurons in the cochlear nucleus.

Response Characteristics of Some Single Units in the Cochlear Nucleus to Tone-Burst Stimulation

Spike discharges of single units in the cat's cochlear nucleus in response to repetitive tone-burst stimulation were recorded with metal microelectrodes; histograms of times of discharges relative to onset of stimuli were obtained on the TX-0 computer. The histograms of the responses of some units show several distinct peaks, that indicate that any one unit fires at preferred times during each tone-burst presentation. The time of the first peak (latency of response) and the time intervals between successive peaks change systematically with changes in intensity (tens of dB's), repetition rate (5–35/sec), and duration (10–100 msec) of the tone bursts (2–40 kc/sec). These time measurements decrease monotonically with increases in stimulus intensity and increase monotonically with increases in stimulus repetition rate and duration. They do not correlate with the frequency of tone to which the unit is most sensitive. [Work supported in part by the U. S. Army Signal Corps, the U. S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the U. S. Office of Naval Research; the National Science Foundation (grant G-16526), the National Institutes of Health, U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (grant MH-04737-03); the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (grant NsG-496); and in part by research grant B-1344, National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness, National Institutes of Health, Public Health Service, U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.]

Studies with Artificial Neurons, IV: Binaural Temporal Resolution of Clicks

A psychophysical experiment performed by Guttman, van Bergeijk, and David in 1960 showed that binaural auditory resolution of repetitively presented, closely spaced clicks improves as repetition rate is increased. We propose a model in which the action of a single neuron can account for the phenomenon; it depends on a self-inhibition function that serves to vary temporal resolution with stimulus rate. Single-spike (click) stimuli elicit output bursts of variable duration; burst lengths are controlled by an output-derived feedback whose level depends on stimulus repetition rate. An electronic model of a neuron, simulating a cochlear-nucleus unit, accurately replicates the essential features of the psychophysical data. Two time constants, estimated by extrapolation, are postulated for single units in the human auditory system.