Abstract
Discharge rates for populations of single auditory nerve fibers in response to 1.5 kHz tone bursts were measured in anesthetized cats. Separate plots of average rate vs. best frequency (rate-place profiles) were made for high, medium and low spontaneous rate (SR) auditory nerve fibers. At the lowest sound levels studied (34 dB SPL), all three SR groups show a peak in the rate-place profile centered around 1.5 kHz. At the highest sound levels studied (87 dB SPL), the average rates of the high and medium SR fibers are saturated across a wide range of best frequencies, but a peak around 1.5 kHz is maintained in the rate-place representation of the low SR fibers. These results show that in addition to the temporal information present in the discharge patterns of auditory nerve fibers, a rate-place representation of a single low-frequency tone exists in the auditory nerve over a wide range of sound levels.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 91-95 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Hearing Research |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1986 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- auditory nerve
- low frequency
- rate-place profile
- spontaneous rate
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sensory Systems