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Journal of Neuroscience, Vol 7, 3105-3116, Copyright © 1987 by Society for Neuroscience
Representation of interaural time difference in the central nucleus of the barn owl's inferior colliculus
H Wagner, T Takahashi and M Konishi
Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena 91125.
This paper investigates the role of the central nucleus of the barn owl's
inferior colliculus in determination of the sound-source azimuth. The
central nucleus contains many neurons that are sensitive to interaural time
difference (ITD), the cue for azimuth in the barn owl. The response of
these neurons varies in a cyclic manner with the ITD of a tone or noise
burst. Response maxima recur at integer multiples of the period of the
stimulating tone, or, if the stimulus is noise, at integer multiples of the
period corresponding to the neuron's best frequency. Such neurons can
signal, by means of their relative spike rate, the phase difference between
the sounds reaching the left and right ears. Since an interaural phase
difference corresponds to more than one ITD, these neurons represent ITD
ambiguously. We call this phenomenon phase ambiguity. The central nucleus
is tonotopically organized and its neurons are narrowly tuned to frequency.
Neurons in an array perpendicular to isofrequency laminae form a
physiological and anatomical unit; only one ITD, the array-specific ITD,
activates all neurons in an array at the same relative level. We,
therefore, may say that, in the central nucleus, an ITD is conserved in an
array of neurons. Array-specific ITDs are mapped and encompass the entire
auditory space of the barn owl. Individual space-specific neurons of the
external nucleus, which receive inputs from a wide range of frequency
channels (Knudsen and Konishi, 1978), are selective for a unique ITD.
Space-specific neurons do not show phase ambiguity when stimulated with
noise (Takahashi and Konishi, 1986). Space-specific neurons receive inputs
from arrays that are selective for the same ITD. The collective response of
the neurons in an array may be the basis for the absence of phase ambiguity
in space-specific neurons.
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