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The Journal of Neuroscience, February 15, 2002, 22(4):1454-1467
The Coding of Spatial Location by Single Units in the Lateral
Superior Olive of the Cat. I. Spatial Receptive Fields in Azimuth
Daniel J.
Tollin and
Tom C. T.
Yin
Department of Physiology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison,
Wisconsin 53706
The lateral superior olive (LSO) is one of the most peripheral
auditory nuclei receiving inputs from both ears, and LSO neurons are
sensitive to interaural level differences (ILDs), one of the primary
acoustical cues for sound location. We used the virtual space (VS)
technique to present over earphones broadband stimuli containing
natural combinations of localization cues as a function of azimuth
while recording extracellular responses from single LSO cells. The
responses of LSO cells exhibited spatial receptive fields (SRFs) in
azimuth consonant with their sensitivity to ILDs of stimuli presented
dichotically: high discharge rates for ipsilateral azimuths where
stimulus amplitude to the excitatory ear exceeded that to the
inhibitory ear, rapidly declining rates near the midline, and low rates
for contralateral azimuths where the amplitude to the inhibitory ear
exceeded that to the excitatory ear. Relative to binaural stimulation,
presentations of the VS stimuli to the ipsilateral ear alone yielded
increased rates, particularly in the contralateral field, confirming
that the binaural SRFs were shaped by contralateral inhibition. Our
finding that LSO neurons respond to azimuth consistent with their ILD
sensitivity supports the long-held hypothesis that LSO neurons compute
a correlate of the ILD present in free-field stimuli. Only weak
correlations between the properties of pure-tone ILD functions and the
SRFs were found, indicating that ILD sensitivity measured at only one sound level is not sufficient to predict sensitivity to azimuth. Sensitivity to spatial location was also retained over a wide range of
stimulus levels under binaural, but not monaural, conditions.
Key words:
lateral superior olive; sound localization; binaural; inferior colliculus; cat; interaural level difference
Copyright © 2002 Society for Neuroscience 0270-6474/02/2241454-14$05.00/0
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