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Journal of Neuroscience, Vol 11, 3456-3470, Copyright © 1991 by Society for Neuroscience
The monaural nuclei of the lateral lemniscus in an echolocating bat: parallel pathways for analyzing temporal features of sound
E Covey and JH Casseday
Department of Neurobiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710.
In echolocating bats, three cell groups in the lateral lemniscus are
conspicuous for their large size and high degree of differentiation. These
cell groups are the intermediate nucleus (INLL), columnar nucleus (VNLLc),
and multipolar cell area (VNLLm). All receive projections from the
contralateral cochlear nucleus. Previous anatomical studies suggest the
hypothesis that these nuclei are important for analyzing the temporal
structure of sound. To investigate this possibility, we recorded responses
of single units in the INLL, VNLLc, and VNLLm of Eptesicus fuscus. The
results show that each cytoarchitectural division contains a complete
tonotopic representation. Certain response properties are common to all
three nuclei. First, virtually all units are monaural. Second, all are
broadly tuned to frequency; their average Q10dB value of 9.1 is
considerably lower than values measured in the inferior colliculus of
Eptesicus. Third, most units have little or no spontaneous activity.
Fourth, all have short integration times, responding robustly to stimuli
less than 5 msec in duration. The broad tuning, lack of spontaneous
activity, and short integration time all make these neurons well suited for
the accurate encoding of temporal information. Although there are many
similarities, there are also important differences among nuclei. The
clearest evidence of specialization is in VNLLc. Neurons here are more
broadly tuned than those in INLL or VNLLm, have no spontaneous activity,
and always respond with one spike per stimulus. The latency of the spike is
precisely locked to the stimulus onset, with variability from trial to
trial as low as 0.03 msec. In addition, the latency remains constant over
large variations in frequency or intensity. In INLL and VNLLm, response
patterns are about equally distributed between tonic, chopping, and phasic;
there are no single-spike constant-latency responses of the type seen in
VNLLc, although some choppers and pausers do respond with constant
first-spike latency. The results indicate that VNLLc is specialized to
encode very precisely the onset of sound; the other nuclei may encode
ongoing properties of a sound.
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