RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Topography of Interaural Temporal Disparity Coding in Projections of Medial Superior Olive to Inferior Colliculus
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 7438
OP 7449
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.23-19-07438.2003
VO 23
IS 19
A1 Oliver, Douglas L.
A1 Beckius, Gretchen E.
A1 Bishop, Deborah C.
A1 Loftus, William C.
A1 Batra, Ranjan
YR 2003
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/23/19/7438.abstract
AB Neurons in the medial superior olive encode interaural temporal disparity, and their receptive fields indicate the location of a sound source in the azimuthal plane. It is often assumed that the projections of these neurons transmit the receptive field information about azimuth from point to point, much like the projections of the retina to the brain transmit the position of a visual stimulus. Yet this assumption has never been verified. Here, we use physiological and anatomical methods to examine the projections of the medial superior olive to the inferior colliculus for evidence of a spatial topography that would support transmission of azimuthal receptive fields. The results show that this projection does not follow a simple point-to-point topographical map of receptive field location. Thus, the representation of sound location along the azimuth in the inferior colliculus most likely relies on a complex, nonlinear map.