Elsevier

Experimental Neurology

Volume 42, Issue 3, March 1974, Pages 532-540
Experimental Neurology

Unit responses in the inferior colliculus of rat to temporal auditory patterns of tone sweeps and noise bursts

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Abstract

Units at the inferior colliculus in rat were examined for selectivities to simple temporal auditory patterns of noise bursts alternated with frequency-modulated tones. Three auditory patterns were used, two with tone segments alternated with noise bursts and one with only noise bursts. The patterns containing the tone segments differed in the direction of frequency modulation imposed on the tone components, one pattern having an upward swept tone and the other a downward swept tone over the 6–9 kHz range. The majority of the 50 units recorded gave more spikes to one of the two patterns containing the tone component. In addition, unit responses to the noise bursts differentiated between these two patterns indicating a temporally extended effect of the tone component. Relative to the control pattern containing no tone component, unit spike counts were both increased and decreased in response to the patterns having the tone components, perhaps in relation to their characteristic frequency's proximity to the tone-sweep range. These findings support the existence of a subcortical neuronal population in naive rats that signals the occurrence of specific temporal auditory patterns containing frequency-modulation and noise-burst components.

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1

The present address of J. A. Winfield is Box 587, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1300 Morris Park Ave., Bronx, NY 10461. This work was supported by NINDS Grant NS09551 and a General Research Grant, U. C. Academic Senate.

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