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The Journal of Neuroscience, April 30, 2008, 28(18):4767-4776; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0238-08.2008

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
A Discontinuous Tonotopic Organization in the Inferior Colliculus of the Rat

Manuel S. Malmierca,^1,2 Marco A. Izquierdo,^1,2 Salvatore Cristaudo,^1,2 Olga Hernández,^1,2 David Pérez-González,^1,2 Ellen Covey,^2,3 and Douglas L. Oliver^2,4

¹Auditory Neurophysiology Unit, Laboratory for the Neurobiology of Hearing, Faculty of Medicine and ²Institute of Neuroscience of Castilla y León, University of Salamanca, 37007 Salamanca, Spain, ³Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, and ⁴Department of Neuroscience, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, Connecticut 06030-3401

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Manuel S. Malmierca, Auditory Neurophysiology Unit, Laboratory for the Neurobiology of Hearing, Faculty of Medicine, University of Salamanca, Campus Miguel Unamuno, Alfonso X el Sabio s/n, 37007 Salamanca, Spain. Email: msm{at}usal.es

Audible frequencies of sound are encoded in a continuous manner along the length of the cochlea, and frequency is transmitted to the brain as a representation of place on the basilar membrane. The resulting tonotopic map has been assumed to be a continuous smooth progression from low to high frequency throughout the central auditory system. Here, physiological and anatomical data show that best frequency is represented in a discontinuous manner in the inferior colliculus, the major auditory structure of the midbrain. Multiunit maps demonstrate a distinct stepwise organization in the order of best frequency progression. Furthermore, independent data from single neurons show that best frequencies at octave intervals of approximately one-third are more prevalent than others. These data suggest that, in the inferior colliculus, there is a defined space of tissue devoted to a given frequency, and input within this frequency band may be pooled for higher-level processing.

Key words: auditory; inferior colliculus; tonotopic organization; laminar organization; 3-D reconstruction; critical bands

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Received Oct. 6, 2007; revised March 11, 2008; accepted March 26, 2008.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Manuel S. Malmierca, Auditory Neurophysiology Unit, Laboratory for the Neurobiology of Hearing, Faculty of Medicine, University of Salamanca, Campus Miguel Unamuno, Alfonso X el Sabio s/n, 37007 Salamanca, Spain. Email: msm{at}usal.es

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. S. Malmierca, S. Cristaudo, D. Perez-Gonzalez, and E. Covey Stimulus-Specific Adaptation in the Inferior Colliculus of the Anesthetized Rat J. Neurosci., April 29, 2009; 29(17): 5483 - 5493. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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