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The Journal of Neuroscience, May 21, 2008, 28(21):5481-5493; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5041-07.2008

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Midbrain Auditory Neurons Integrate Excitation and Inhibition to Generate Duration Selectivity: An In Vivo Whole-Cell Patch Study in Anurans

Christopher J. Leary, Christofer J. Edwards, and Gary J. Rose

Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112

Correspondence should be addressed to Gary J. Rose, Department of Biology, University of Utah, 257 South 1400 East, Room 204, Salt Lake City, UT 84112. Email: rose{at}bioscience.utah.edu

Sound duration can play a pivotal role in the reproductive behavior of anuran amphibians. Here, we report the first whole-cell recordings from duration-selective neurons in the anuran torus semicircularis, in vivo. We show that most short-pass duration-selective cells exhibited short-latency inhibition and delayed excitation. The duration of the inhibition increased with tone burst duration. Hence, for long-duration tone bursts, inhibition overlapped with excitation, reducing or eliminating spikes; no postinhibitory rebound was present. Other short-pass cells, however, showed inhibition only for long-duration tone bursts. Bandpass duration selectivity also involved interplay between inhibition and excitation; inhibition negated excitation with tone bursts that exceeded the optimum duration. Additionally, however, bandpass selectivity arose from stimulus-dependent excitation; tone bursts of sufficiently long duration were required to elicit excitation. Similarly, long-pass neurons showed inhibition and duration-dependent enhancement of excitation; long-pass selectivity resulted from enhanced excitation outlasting the transient inhibition or, in some cases, excitation overriding concurrent inhibition. Last, we evaluated the stimulus specificity of duration-selective neurons to variations in pulse repetition rate. We show that (1) most neurons that exhibited long-pass selectivity for tone-burst duration nonetheless responded to short-duration pulses when repeated at particular rates, and (2) some neurons that showed selectivity for tone burst duration also showed selectivity for pulse train duration. These novel response profiles appear to result from interplay between inhibition and time- and activity-dependent changes in excitation strength. These findings are discussed in the context of prevailing models of duration selectivity and acoustic communication in anurans.

Key words: acoustic; auditory; in vivo; inferior colliculus; intracellular; patch clamp; temporal coding

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Received Nov. 13, 2007; revised March 31, 2008; accepted April 10, 2008.

Correspondence should be addressed to Gary J. Rose, Department of Biology, University of Utah, 257 South 1400 East, Room 204, Salt Lake City, UT 84112. Email: rose{at}bioscience.utah.edu

This article has been cited by other articles:

				C. J. Leary Hormones and acoustic communication in anuran amphibians Integr. Comp. Biol., October 1, 2009; 49(4): 452 - 470. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				B. Aubie, S. Becker, and P. A. Faure Computational Models of Millisecond Level Duration Tuning in Neural Circuits J. Neurosci., July 22, 2009; 29(29): 9255 - 9270. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				H.-R. Geis and J. G. G. Borst Intracellular Responses of Neurons in the Mouse Inferior Colliculus to Sinusoidal Amplitude-Modulated Tones J Neurophysiol, April 1, 2009; 101(4): 2002 - 2016. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				F. Creutzig, S. Wohlgemuth, A. Stumpner, J. Benda, B. Ronacher, and A. V. M. Herz Timescale-Invariant Representation of Acoustic Communication Signals by a Bursting Neuron J. Neurosci., February 25, 2009; 29(8): 2575 - 2580. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				C. J. Edwards, C. J. Leary, and G. J. Rose Mechanisms of Long-Interval Selectivity in Midbrain Auditory Neurons: Roles of Excitation, Inhibition, and Plasticity J Neurophysiol, December 1, 2008; 100(6): 3407 - 3416. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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