scholarly journals Temporal Modulation Transfer Functions in Cat Primary Auditory Cortex: Separating Stimulus Effects From Neural Mechanisms

2002 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 305-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jos J. Eggermont

We present here a comparison between the local field potentials (LFP) and multiunit (MU) responses, comprising 401 single units, in primary auditory cortex (AI) of 31 cats to periodic click trains, gamma-tone and time-reversed gamma-tone trains, AM noise, AM tones, and frequency-modulated (FM) tones. In a large number of cases, the response to all six stimuli was obtained for the same neurons. We investigate whether cortical neurons are likely to respond to all types of repetitive transients and modulated stimuli and whether a dependence on modulating waveform, or tone or noise carrier, exists. In 97% of the recordings, a temporal modulation transfer function (tMTF) for MU activity was obtained for gamma-tone trains, in 92% for periodic click trains, in 83% for time-reversed gamma-tone trains, in 82% for AM noise, in 71% for FM tones, and only in 53% for AM tones. In 31% of the cases, the units responded to all six stimuli in an envelope-following way. These particular units had significantly larger onset responses to each stimulus compared with all other units. The overall response distribution shows the preference of AI units for stimuli with short rise times such as clicks and gamma tones. It also shows a clear asymmetry in the ability to respond to AM noise and AM tones and points to a strong effect of the frequency content of the carrier on the subcortical processing of AM stimuli. Yet all temporal response properties were independent of characteristic frequency and frequency-tuning curve bandwidth. We show that the observed differences in the tMTFs for different stimuli are to a large extent produced by the different degree of phase locking of the neuronal firings to the envelope of the first stimulus in the train or first modulation period. A normalization procedure, based on these synchronization differences, unified the tMTFs for all stimuli except clicks and allowed the identification of a largely stimulus-invariant, low-pass temporal filter function that most likely reflects the properties of synaptic depression and facilitation. For nonclick stimuli, the low-pass filter has a cutoff frequency of ∼10 Hz and a slope of ∼6 dB/octave. For nonclick stimuli, there was a systematic difference between the vector strength for LFPs and MU activity that can likely be attributed to postactivation suppression mechanisms.

2010 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 192-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig A. Atencio ◽  
Christoph E. Schreiner

For primary auditory cortex (AI) laminae, there is little evidence of functional specificity despite clearly expressed cellular and connectional differences. Natural sounds are dominated by dynamic temporal and spectral modulations and we used these properties to evaluate local functional differences or constancies across laminae. To examine the layer-specific processing of acoustic modulation information, we simultaneously recorded from multiple AI laminae in the anesthetized cat. Neurons were challenged with dynamic moving ripple stimuli and we subsequently computed spectrotemporal receptive fields (STRFs). From the STRFs, temporal and spectral modulation transfer functions (tMTFs, sMTFs) were calculated and compared across layers. Temporal and spectral modulation properties often differed between layers. On average, layer II/III and VI neurons responded to lower temporal modulations than those in layer IV. tMTFs were mainly band-pass in granular layer IV and became more low-pass in infragranular layers. Compared with layer IV, spectral MTFs were broader and their upper cutoff frequencies higher in layers V and VI. In individual penetrations, temporal modulation preference was similar across layers for roughly 70% of the penetrations, suggesting a common, columnar functional characteristic. By contrast, only about 30% of penetrations showed consistent spectral modulation preferences across layers, indicative of functional laminar diversity or specialization. Since local laminar differences in stimulus preference do not always parallel the main flow of information in the columnar cortical microcircuit, this indicates the influence of additional horizontal or thalamocortical inputs. AI layers that express differing modulation properties may serve distinct roles in the extraction of dynamic sound information, with the differing information specific to the targeted stations of each layer.


2009 ◽  
Vol 101 (6) ◽  
pp. 3031-3041 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Pienkowski ◽  
Greg Shaw ◽  
Jos J. Eggermont

An extension of the Wiener-Volterra theory to a Poisson-distributed impulse train input was used to characterize the temporal response properties of neurons in primary auditory cortex (AI) of the ketamine-anesthetized cat. Both first- and second-order “Poisson-Wiener” (PW) models were tested on their predictions of temporal modulation transfer functions (tMTFs), which were derived from extracellular spike responses to periodic click trains with click repetition rates of 2–64 Hz. Second-order (i.e., nonlinear) PW fits to the measured tMTFs could be described as very good in a majority of cases (e.g., predictability ≥80%) and were almost always superior to first-order (i.e., linear) fits. In all sampled neurons, second-order PW kernels showed strong compressive nonlinearities (i.e., a depression of the impulse response) but never expansive nonlinearities (i.e., a facilitation of the impulse response). In neurons with low-pass tMTFs, the depression decayed exponentially with the interstimulus lag, whereas in neurons with band-pass tMTFs, the depression was typically double-peaked, and the second peak occurred at a lag that correlated with the neuron's best modulation frequency. It appears that modulation-tuning in AI arises in part from an interplay of two nonlinear processes with distinct time courses.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenlu Pan ◽  
Jing Pan ◽  
Yan Zhao ◽  
Hongzheng Zhang ◽  
Jie Tang

Serotonin transporter (SERT) modulates the level of 5-HT and significantly affects the activity of serotonergic neurons in the central nervous system. The manipulation of SERT has lasting neurobiological and behavioral consequences, including developmental dysfunction, depression, and anxiety. Auditory disorders have been widely reported as the adverse events of these mental diseases. It is unclear how SERT impacts neuronal connections/interactions and what mechanism(s) may elicit the disruption of normal neural network functions in auditory cortex. In the present study, we report on the neuronal morphology and function of auditory cortex in SERT knockout (KO) mice. We show that the dendritic length of the fourth layer (L-IV) pyramidal neurons and the second-to-third layer (L-II/III) interneurons were reduced in the auditory cortex of the SERT KO mice. The number and density of dendritic spines of these neurons were significantly less than those of wild-type neurons. Also, the frequency-tonotopic organization of primary auditory cortex was disrupted in SERT KO mice. The auditory neurons of SERT KO mice exhibited border frequency tuning with high-intensity thresholds. These findings indicate that SERT plays a key role in development and functional maintenance of auditory cortical neurons. Auditory function should be examined when SERT is selected as a target in the treatment for psychiatric disorders.


2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (4) ◽  
pp. 1501-1512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Gareth Hörpel ◽  
Uwe Firzlaff

Bats use a large repertoire of calls for social communication. In the bat Phyllostomus discolor, social communication calls are often characterized by sinusoidal amplitude and frequency modulations with modulation frequencies in the range of 100–130 Hz. However, peaks in mammalian auditory cortical modulation transfer functions are typically limited to modulation frequencies below 100 Hz. We investigated the coding of sinusoidally amplitude modulated sounds in auditory cortical neurons in P. discolor by constructing rate and temporal modulation transfer functions. Neuronal responses to playbacks of various communication calls were additionally recorded and compared with the neurons’ responses to sinusoidally amplitude-modulated sounds. Cortical neurons in the posterior dorsal field of the auditory cortex were tuned to unusually high modulation frequencies: rate modulation transfer functions often peaked around 130 Hz (median: 87 Hz), and the median of the highest modulation frequency that evoked significant phase-locking was also 130 Hz. Both values are much higher than reported from the auditory cortex of other mammals, with more than 51% of the units preferring modulation frequencies exceeding 100 Hz. Conspicuously, the fast modulations preferred by the neurons match the fast amplitude and frequency modulations of prosocial, and mostly of aggressive, communication calls in P. discolor. We suggest that the preference for fast amplitude modulations in the P. discolor dorsal auditory cortex serves to reliably encode the fast modulations seen in their communication calls. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Neural processing of temporal sound features is crucial for the analysis of communication calls. In bats, these calls are often characterized by fast temporal envelope modulations. Because auditory cortex neurons typically encode only low modulation frequencies, it is unclear how species-specific vocalizations are cortically processed. We show that auditory cortex neurons in the bat Phyllostomus discolor encode fast temporal envelope modulations. This property improves response specificity to communication calls and thus might support species-specific communication.


1998 ◽  
Vol 80 (5) ◽  
pp. 2743-2764 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jos J. Eggermont

Eggermont, Jos J. Representation of spectral and temporal sound features in three cortical fields of the cat. Similarities outweigh differences. J. Neurophysiol. 80: 2743–2764, 1998. This study investigates the degree of similarity of three different auditory cortical areas with respect to the coding of periodic stimuli. Simultaneous single- and multiunit recordings in response to periodic stimuli were made from primary auditory cortex (AI), anterior auditory field (AAF), and secondary auditory cortex (AII) in the cat to addresses the following questions: is there, within each cortical area, a difference in the temporal coding of periodic click trains, amplitude-modulated (AM) noise bursts, and AM tone bursts? Is there a difference in this coding between the three cortical fields? Is the coding based on the temporal modulation transfer function (tMTF) and on the all-order interspike-interval (ISI) histogram the same? Is the perceptual distinction between rhythm and roughness for AM stimuli related to a temporal versus spatial representation of AM frequency in auditory cortex? Are interarea differences in temporal response properties related to differences in frequency tuning? The results showed that: 1) AM stimuli produce much higher best modulation frequencies (BMFs) and limiting rates than periodic click trains. 2) For periodic click trains and AM noise, the BMFs and limiting rates were not significantly different for the three areas. However, for AM tones the BMF and limiting rates were about a factor 2 lower in AAF compared with the other areas. 3) The representation of stimulus periodicity in ISIs resulted in significantly lower mean BMFs and limiting rates compared with those estimated from the tMTFs. The difference was relatively small for periodic click trains but quite large for both AM stimuli, especially in AI and AII. 4) Modulation frequencies <20 Hz were represented in the ISIs, suggesting that rhythm is coded in auditory cortex in temporal fashion. 5) In general only a modest interdependence of spectral- and temporal-response properties in AI and AII was found. The BMFs were correlated positively with characteristic frequency in AAF. The limiting rate was positively correlated with the frequency-tuning curve bandwidth in AI and AII but not in AAF. Only in AAF was a correlation between BMF and minimum latency was found. Thus whereas differences were found in the frequency-tuning curve bandwidth and minimum response latencies among the three areas, the coding of periodic stimuli in these areas was fairly similar with the exception of the very poor representation of AM tones in AII. This suggests a strong parallel processing organization in auditory cortex.


2014 ◽  
Vol 492 ◽  
pp. 493-498
Author(s):  
Shuhei Shiina ◽  
Sidshchadhaa Aumted ◽  
Hiroshi Takami

The proposed optimal control on the basis of both current and voltage of the buck-converter is designed to be based on Inverse Linear Quadratic (ILQ) design method with the resonant low pass filter, which eliminates the disturbance by appended disturbance compensator. The designed scheme is composed of the state equation, an optimal ILQ solution, the ILQ servo-system with the disturbance elimination, the optimal basic gain, the optimal condition, the transfer functions and the disturbance compensator. Our results show the proposed strategy is the stability and robust control and has been made to improve ILQ control for the disturbance elimination of the output response, which guarantees the optimal gains on the basis of polynomial pole assignment.


2015 ◽  
Vol 816 ◽  
pp. 132-139
Author(s):  
Ľubica Miková ◽  
Alexander Gmiterko ◽  
Michal Kelemen

The paper deals with the design of an ideal positioning servo system. To achieve this aim, we will derive transfer functions of the PID controller and the second-order low-pass filter while using typical fault frequencies for PID controller with a low pass filter. Consequently, an overall frequency characteristic of the open servo system will be depicted. This characteristic will be further used to determine the amplitude and phase safety, which determine the degree of stability system.


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