[Perception and selectivity of sound duration in the central auditory midbrain.] [Ariticle in Chinese]
WANG Xin, LI An-An, WU Fei-Jian
College of Life Science, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China; Department of Life Sciences and Chemistry, Hubei University of Education, Wuhan 430205, China; Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences/State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan 430071, China
Abstract
Sound duration plays important role in acoustic communication. Information of acoustic signal is mainly encoded in the amplitude and frequency spectrum of different durations. Duration selective neurons exist in the central auditory system including inferior colliculus (IC) of frog, bat, mouse and chinchilla, etc., and they are important in signal recognition and feature detection. Two
generally accepted models, which are “coincidence detector model” and “anti-coincidence detector model”, have been raised to explain the mechanism of neural selective responses to sound durations based on the study of IC neurons in bats. Although they are different in details, they both emphasize the importance of synaptic integration of excitatory and inhibitory inputs, and are able to explain the responses of most duration-selective neurons. However, both of the hypotheses need to be improved since other sound parameters, such as spectral pattern, amplitude and repetition rate, could affect the duration selectivity of the neurons. The dynamic changes of
sound parameters are believed to enable the animal to effectively perform recognition of behavior related acoustic signals. Under free
field sound stimulation, we analyzed the neural responses in the IC and auditory cortex of mouse and bat to sounds with different
duration, frequency and amplitude, using intracellular or extracellular recording techniques. Based on our work and previous studies,
this article reviews the properties of duration selectivity in central auditory system and discusses the mechanisms of duration
selectivity and the effect of other sound parameters on the duration coding of auditory neurons.
Key words: duration tuning; temporal integration; central auditory system; inferior colliculus
Received: 2010-02-22 Accepted: 2010-06-09
Corresponding author: 吴飞健 E-mail: wufj@mail.ccnu.edu.cn
Citing This Article:
WANG Xin, LI An-An, WU Fei-Jian. [Perception and selectivity of sound duration in the central auditory midbrain.] [Ariticle in Chinese] . Acta Physiol Sin 2010; 62 (4): 309-316 (in Chinese with English abstract).