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The Journal of Neuroscience, May 7, 2008, 28(19):4848-4860; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5421-07.2008

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Interaural Level Difference Discrimination Thresholds for Single Neurons in the Lateral Superior Olive

Daniel J. Tollin,¹ Kanthaiah Koka,¹ and Jeffrey J. Tsai^1,2

Departments of ¹Physiology and Biophysics, and ²Neurology, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Aurora, Colorado 80045

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Daniel J. Tollin, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Mail Stop 8307, P.O. Box 6511, 12800 East 19th Avenue, Aurora, CO 80045. Email: Daniel.tollin{at}uchsc.edu

The lateral superior olive (LSO) is one of the earliest sites in the auditory pathway that is involved in processing acoustical cues to sound location. Here, we tested the hypothesis that LSO neurons can signal small changes in interaural level differences (ILDs), a cue to horizontal sound location, of pure tones based on discharge rate consistent with psychophysical performance in the discrimination of ILDs. Neural thresholds for ILD discrimination were determined from the discharge rates and associated response variability of single units in response to 300 ms tones in the LSO of barbiturate-anesthetized cats using detection theory. Neural response variability was well described by a power function of the mean rate, both in individual neurons and collectively; LSO neurons were less variable than expected from a Poisson process. Compared with psychophysical data, the best-threshold ILDs of single LSO neurons were comparable with or better than behavior over the full range of frequencies (0.3–35 kHz) and pedestal ILDs (±25 dB) explored in this study. With a pedestal ILD of 0 dB, ILD increments of 1 dB could be discriminated by some neurons, with a median of 4.35 dB across neurons. For pedestal ILDs away from 0 dB, the best-threshold ILDs were as low as 0.5 dB, with a median of 2.3 dB. These findings support the hypothesis that the LSO plays a role in the extraction of ILD, and that the representation of ILD by LSO neurons may set a lower bound on the behavioral sensitivity to ILDs.

Key words: binaural hearing; interaural level difference; variability; lower envelope; detection theory; sound localization

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Received Aug. 6, 2007; revised March 24, 2008; accepted March 26, 2008.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Daniel J. Tollin, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Mail Stop 8307, P.O. Box 6511, 12800 East 19th Avenue, Aurora, CO 80045. Email: Daniel.tollin{at}uchsc.edu

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