NMDA-mediated facilitation in the echo-delay tuned areas of the auditory cortex of the mustached bat

1997 ◽  
Vol 110 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 219-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atsushi Tanahashi ◽  
Junsei Horikawa ◽  
Nobuo Suga
1989 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 202-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Edamatsu ◽  
M. Kawasaki ◽  
N. Suga

1. The orientation sound (pulse) of the mustached bat, Pteronotus parnellii parnellii, consists of long constant-frequency components (CF1-4) and short frequency-modulated components (FM1-4). The auditory cortex of this bat contains several combination-sensitive areas: FM-FM, DF, VA, VF, and CF/CF. The FM-FM area consists of neurons tuned to a combination of the pulse FM1 and the echo FMn (n = 2, 3, or 4) and has an echo-delay (target-range) axis. Our preliminary anatomical studies with tritiated amino acids suggest that the FM-FM area projects to the dorsal fringe (DF) area, which in turn projects to the ventral fringe (VF) area. The aim of our study was to characterize the response properties of VF neurons and to explore the functional organization of the VF area. Acoustic stimuli delivered to the bats were CF tones, FM sounds, and their combinations mimicking the pulse emitted by the mustached bat and the echo. 2. Like the FM-FM and DF areas, the VF area is composed of three types of FM-FM combination-sensitive neurons: FM1-FM2, FM1-FM3, and FM1-FM4. These neurons show little or no response to a pulse alone, echo alone, single CF tone or single FM sound. They do, however, show a strong facilitative response to a pulse-echo pair with a particular echo delay. The essential components in the pulse-echo pair for facilitation are the FM1 of the pulse and the FMn of the echo.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


1993 ◽  
Vol 69 (5) ◽  
pp. 1700-1712 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Edamatsu ◽  
N. Suga

1. The orientation sound (pulse) of the mustached bat, Pteronotus parnellii parnellii, consists of four harmonics (H1-4), each containing a long constant-frequency component (CF1-4) followed by a short frequency-modulated component (FM1-4). The auditory cortex of this species contains several "combination-sensitive" areas: FM-FM, dorsal fringe (DF), ventral fringe (VF), CF/CF, and H1-H2. The FM-FM, DF, and VF areas each consist of neurons tuned to particular delays of echo FMn (n = 2, 3, or 4) from pulse FM1, and have an echo-delay (target-range) axis. This delay axis is from 0.4 to approximately 18 ms in the FM-FM area, to approximately 9 ms in the DF area, and to approximately 5 ms in the VF area. Therefore we hypothesized that the VF area was more specialized for the processing of range information in the terminal phase of echolocation than was the FM-FM area. The aim of our present studies was to find differences in response properties between neurons with best delays shorter than 6 ms in the VF and FM-FM areas and thus to test our hypothesis. 2. In the terminal phase of target-directed flight, the rate of pulse emission becomes higher, pulse duration (in particular, CF duration) becomes shorter, echo delay becomes shorter, and echoes (both the CF and FM components) are less Doppler shifted. Therefore, a "temporal-pattern-simulating (TPS)" stimulus was designed to mimic the train of pulse-echo pairs that would be heard by the bat during the terminal phase, and responses of single neurons to the TPS stimulus and other types of stimuli were recorded from the VF and FM-FM areas of the auditory cortex of unanesthetized bats with a tungsten-wire microelectrode. 3. Best delays of the neurons studied range between 0.9 and 5.5 ms (2.64 +/- 0.72 ms, N = 181) for the VF area, and between 0.6 and 6.0 ms (3.64 +/- 1.14, N = 144) for the FM-FM area. More neurons in the VF area than those in the FM-FM area showed no response or a poor response to the TPS stimulus. Therefore VF neurons are less suited than neurons in the FM-FM area for processing target ranges in the terminal phase of target-directed flight. Facilitative delay-tuning curves were commonly sandwiched between inhibitory delay-tuning curves. The lack of response or poor response to the TPS stimulus can be explained by this inhibition.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


1992 ◽  
Vol 68 (5) ◽  
pp. 1613-1623 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Riquimaroux ◽  
S. J. Gaioni ◽  
N. Suga

1. The Jamaican mustached bat uses a biosonar signal (pulse) with eight major components: four harmonics each consisting of a long constant frequency (CF1-4) component followed by a short frequency-modulated (FM1-4) component. While flying, the bat adjusts the frequency of its pulse so as to maintain the CF2 of the Doppler-shifted echo at a frequency to which its cochlea is very sharply tuned. This Doppler shift (DS) compensation likely is mediated or influenced by the Doppler-shifted CF (DSCF) processing area of the primary auditory cortex, which only represents frequencies in the range of echo CF2s (60.6 to 62.3 kHz when the "resting" frequency of the CF2 is 61.0 kHz). 2. We trained four bats to discriminate between different trains of paired tone bursts that mimicked a bat's pulse CF2 and the accompanying echo CF2. The frequency of these CF2s ranged between 61.0 and 64.0 kHz. A discriminated shock avoidance procedure response was employed using a leg flexion. For one stimulus, the S+, the pulse and echo CF2s were the same frequency (delta f = 0, i.e., no Doppler shift). A leg flexion during the S+ turned off both the S+ and the scheduled shock. For a second stimulus, the S-, the echo CF2 was 0.05, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, or 2.0 kHz higher than the pulse CF2. A delta f of 0.05 kHz was a frequency difference of 0.08%. No shock followed the S-, and leg flexions had no consequences. Correct responses consisted of a leg flexion during the S+ and no flexion during the S-; these responses were added together to compute the percentage of correct responses. When a bat correctly responded at better than 75% for all the delta f s, muscimol, a potent agonist of gamma-aminobutyric acid, was bilaterally applied to inactivate the DSCF area. Performance on each delta f discrimination was then measured. 3. Initial attempts to condition the bats to flex their legs to the CF tones mimicking part of the natural pulses and echoes failed. When broad-band noise bursts were substituted, however, the conditioned response was rapidly established. The noise band-width was gradually reduced and then replaced with the CF tones. Discrimination training with the tone burst trains then commenced. Throughout this procedure, the bats maintained their responding to the stimuli. The bats typically required approximately 20-30 sessions to perform consistently (> or = 75% correct responses) a discrimination involving a 2 kHz delta f.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


2010 ◽  
Vol 197 (5) ◽  
pp. 605-613 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornelia Hagemann ◽  
Marianne Vater ◽  
Manfred Kössl

1985 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 1109-1145 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Suga ◽  
K. Tsuzuki

For echolocation the mustached bat, Pteronotus parnellii, emits complex orientation sounds (pulses), each consisting of four harmonics with long constant-frequency components (CF1-4) followed by short frequency-modulated components (FM1-4). The CF signals are best suited for target detection and measurement of target velocity. The CF/CF area of the auditory cortex of this species contains neurons sensitive to pulse-echo pairs. These CF/CF combination-sensitive neurons extract velocity information from Doppler-shifted echoes. In this study we electrophysiologically investigated the frequency tuning of CF/CF neurons for excitation, facilitation, and inhibition. CF1/CF2 and CF1/CF3 combination-sensitive neurons responded poorly to individual signal elements in pulse-echo pairs but showed strong facilitation of responses to pulse-echo pairs. The essential components in the pairs were CF1 of the pulse and CF2 or CF3 of the echo. In 68% of CF/CF neurons, the frequency-tuning curves for facilitation were extremely sharp for CF2 or CF3 and were "level-tolerant" so that the bandwidths of the tuning curves were less than 5.0% of best frequencies even at high stimulus levels. Facilitative tuning curves for CF1 were level tolerant only in 6% of the neurons studied. CF/CF neurons were specialized for fine analysis of the frequency relationship between two CF sounds regardless of sound pressure levels. Some CF/CF neurons responded to single-tone stimuli. Frequency-tuning curves for excitation (responses to single-tone stimuli) were extremely sharp and level tolerant for CF2 or CF3 in 59% of CF1/CF2 neurons and 70% of CF1/CF3 neurons. Tuning to CF1 was level tolerant in only 9% of these neurons. Sharp level-tolerant tuning may be the neural basis for small difference limens in frequency at high stimulus levels. Sharp level-tolerant tuning curves were sandwiched between broad inhibitory areas. Best frequencies for inhibition were slightly higher or lower than the best frequencies for facilitation and excitation. We thus conclude that sharp level-tolerant tuning curves are produced by inhibition. The extent to which neural sharpening occurred differed among groups of neurons tuned to different frequencies. The more important the frequency analysis of a particular component in biosonar signals, the more pronounced the neural sharpening. This was in addition to the peripheral specialization for fine frequency analysis of that component. The difference in bandwidth or quality factor between the excitatory tuning curves of peripheral neurons and the facilitative and excitatory tuning curves of CF/CF neurons was larger at higher stimulus levels.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


1994 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas C. Fitzpatrick ◽  
O.W. Henson, Jr.

2010 ◽  
Vol 103 (5) ◽  
pp. 2339-2354 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Vater ◽  
E. Foeller ◽  
E. C. Mora ◽  
F. Coro ◽  
I. J. Russell ◽  
...  

The primary auditory cortex (AI) of adult Pteronotus parnellii features a foveal representation of the second harmonic constant frequency (CF2) echolocation call component. In the corresponding Doppler-shifted constant frequency (DSCF) area, the 61 kHz range is over-represented for extraction of frequency-shift information in CF2 echoes. To assess to which degree AI postnatal maturation depends on active echolocation or/and reflects ongoing cochlear maturation, cortical neurons were recorded in juveniles up to postnatal day P29, before the bats are capable of active foraging. At P1-2, neurons in posterior AI are tuned sensitively to low frequencies (22–45 dB SPL, 28–35 kHz). Within the prospective DSCF area, neurons had insensitive responses (>60 dB SPL) to frequencies <40 kHz and lacked sensitive tuning curve tips. Up to P10, when bats do not yet actively echolocate, tonotopy is further developed and DSCF neurons respond to frequencies of 51–57 kHz with maximum tuning sharpness ( Q10dB) of 57. Between P11 and 20, the frequency representation in AI includes higher frequencies anterior and dorsal to the DSCF area. More multipeaked neurons (33%) are found than at older age. In the oldest group, DSCF neurons are tuned to frequencies close to 61 kHz with Q10dB values ≤212, and threshold sensitivity, tuning sharpness and cortical latencies are adult-like. The data show that basic aspects of cortical tonotopy are established before the bats actively echolocate. Maturation of tonotopy, increase of tuning sharpness, and upward shift in the characteristic frequency of DSCF neurons appear to strongly reflect cochlear maturation.


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