Sensory SystemResearch PaperOver-representation of species-specific vocalizations in the awake mouse inferior colliculus
Section snippets
Surgical procedures
Female CBA/CaJ mice were used in this study. This strain exhibits normal hearing sensitivity well into its second year of life (Willott 1986, Willott 1991, Willott 2005). The care and experimental manipulations of the animals were carried out in accordance with guidelines of the National Institutes of Health and have been approved by the Washington State University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Number of animals used and their suffering was minimized.
To enable extracellular
Results
We recorded well-isolated single unit responses to vocalizations in 102 neurons. These neurons had a range of characteristic frequencies between 6 and 68 kHz with the majority of CFs below 30 kHz (Fig. 1). Seventy-nine neurons responded to at least one of the vocalizations at one or more intensities. Because the focus of this study was on how IC neurons detect and discriminate vocalizations rather than other general properties of IC neurons, only those neurons that responded to at least one
Discussion
There are three main findings of this study. First, some neurons in mouse IC responded to high frequency vocalizations even though their frequency tuning curves were lower than the frequency range of the vocalizations. Second, neural selectivity among conspecific vocalizations occurs in IC. Third, neurons in IC responded to difference tones created by combinations of ultra-high frequencies.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grants IOS-0620560 to C.V.P. and CRCNS IIS-0827722 to P.D.R.
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