Submillisecond monaural coincidence detection by octopus cells
Journal
Acta Acustica united with Acustica
Journal Volume
104
Journal Issue
5
Pages
852-855
Date Issued
2018-09-01
Author(s)
Abstract
In vitro and in silico studies have suggested that octopus cells in the mammalian posterior ventral cochlear nucleus (PVCN) are monaural coincidence detectors that encode the temporal structure of complex sounds. In vivo studies on these neurons, however, are rare due to several technical difficulties. We used sharp high-impedance electrodes in anesthetized gerbils to study the responses of octopus cells to click trains. We find that, even though octopus cells only fire an onset spike to pure tones, they fire in sustained fashion to trains of transients. They entrain to click trains up to 400 Hz with vector strength almost equal to one and spike jitter at ∼100 microseconds. This temporal precision is unmatched by any other cell type in the auditory system.
Publisher
S. Hirzel Verlag GmbH
Type
conference paper