Effect of instantaneous frequency glides on interaural time difference processing by auditory coincidence detectors

Detecting interaural time difference (ITD) is crucial for sound localization. The temporal accuracy required to detect ITD, and how ITD is initially encoded, continue to puzzle scientists. A fundamental question is whether the monaural inputs to the binaural ITD detectors differ only in their timing...

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Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 108; no. 44; pp. 18138 - 18143
Main Authors Fischer, Brian J, Steinberg, Louisa J, Fontaine, Bertrand, Brette, Romain, Peña, Jose L
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences 01.11.2011
National Acad Sciences
Subjects
Animals
Audio frequencies
Auditory nerve
Barns
Behavioral neuroscience
Biological Sciences
Coincidence
detectors
Ears & hearing
Glide paths
Hearing
Mammals
Monaural
Neurons
Neurons - physiology
Neurosciences
Owls
Sound
Strigiformes
Strigiformes - physiology
Time constants
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Summary:Detecting interaural time difference (ITD) is crucial for sound localization. The temporal accuracy required to detect ITD, and how ITD is initially encoded, continue to puzzle scientists. A fundamental question is whether the monaural inputs to the binaural ITD detectors differ only in their timing, when temporal and spectral tunings are largely inseparable in the auditory pathway. Here, we investigate the spectrotemporal selectivity of the monaural inputs to ITD detector neurons of the owl. We found that these inputs are selective for instantaneous frequency glides. Modeling shows that ITD tuning depends strongly on whether the monaural inputs are spectrotemporally matched, an effect that may generalize to mammals. We compare the spectrotemporal selectivity of monaural inputs of ITD detector neurons in vivo, demonstrating that their selectivity matches. Finally, we show that this refinement can develop through spike timing-dependent plasticity. Our findings raise the unexplored issue of time-dependent frequency tuning in auditory coincidence detectors and offer a unifying perspective.
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Edited by Terrence J. Sejnowski, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, and approved September 27, 2011 (received for review June 2, 2011)
1Present address: Department of Mathematics, Seattle University, Seattle, WA, 98122.
Author contributions: B.J.F. and J.L.P. designed research; B.J.F., L.J.S., and J.L.P. performed research; B.J.F., B.F., R.B., and J.L.P. analyzed data; and B.J.F., L.J.S., B.F., R.B., and J.L.P. wrote the paper.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1108921108