Sensitivity to Interaural Temporal Disparities of Low- and High-Frequency Neurons in the Superior Olivary Complex. I. Heterogeneity of Responses

1997 ◽  
Vol 78 (3) ◽  
pp. 1222-1236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ranjan Batra ◽  
Shigeyuki Kuwada ◽  
Douglas C. Fitzpatrick

Batra, Ranjan, Shigeyuki Kuwada, and Douglas C. Fitzpatrick. Sensitivity to interaural temporal disparities of low- and high-frequency neurons in the superior olivary complex. I. Heterogeneity of responses. J. Neurophysiol. 78: 1222–1236, 1997. Interaural temporal disparities (ITDs) are a cue for localization of sounds along the azimuth. Listeners can detect ITDs in the fine structure of low-frequency sounds and also in the envelopes of high-frequency sounds. Sensitivity to ITDs originates in the main nuclei of the superior olivary complex (SOC), the medial and lateral superior olives (MSO and LSO, respectively). This sensitivity is believed to arise from bilateral excitation converging on neurons of the MSO and ipsilateral excitation converging with contralateral inhibition on neurons of the LSO. Here we investigate whether the sensitivity of neurons in the SOC to ITDs can be adequately explained by one of these two mechanisms. Single and multiple units ( n = 124) were studied extracellularly in the SOC of unanesthetized rabbits. We found units that were sensitive to ITDs in the fine structure of low-frequency (<2 kHz) tones and also units that were sensitive to ITDs in the envelopes of sinusoidally amplitude-modulated high-frequency tones. For both categories there were “peak-type” units that discharged maximally at a particular ITD across frequencies or modulation frequencies. These units were consistent with an MSO-type mechanism. There were also “trough-type” units that discharged minimally at a particular ITD. These units were consistent with an LSO-type mechanism. There was a general trend for peak-type units to be located in the vicinity of the MSO and for trough-type units to be located in the vicinity of the LSO. Units of both types appeared to encode ITDs within the estimated free-field range of the rabbit (±300 μs). Many units had varying degrees of irregularities in their responses, which manifested themselves in one of two ways. First, for some units there was no ITD at which the response was consistently maximal or minimal across frequencies. Instead there was an ITD at which the unit consistently responded at some intermediate level. Second, a unit could display considerable jitter from frequency to frequency in the ITD at which it responded maximally or minimally. Units with irregular responses had properties that were continuous with those of other units. They therefore appeared to be variants of peak- and trough-type units. The irregular responses could be modeled by assuming additional phase-locked inputs to a neuron in the MSO or LSO. The function of irregularities may be to shift the ITD sensitivity of a neuron without requiring changes in the anatomic delays of its inputs.

2011 ◽  
Vol 90-93 ◽  
pp. 1531-1538
Author(s):  
Jian Ping He ◽  
Wei Zhong Chen

The natural frequency characteristics of field has the remarkable influence to the field acceleration response. This paper realized the free field liquefaction numerical simulation experiment based on the Finn model, simultaneously performed the elastic field acceleration response comparative experiment, and has studied the acceleration response frequency features question of liquefiable field. The results indicated that, the acceleration response essential feature of liquefaction field is low-frequency amplification, high frequency reduction. The low-frequency amplification effect is higher than the high frequency reduction effect obviously. The acceleration is amplified in early time and is weakened in later period during the liquefaction process. The acceleration amplification in liquefiable field is remarkable for inputting low frequency waves, the acceleration response is 13 times to input value. Elastic fields also have “low-frequency amplification, high-frequency deflation features”, However, this feature of elastic field is not significant as liquefiable field. At the lower position of liquefiable field acceleration amplification is the largest, at the surface of elastic field acceleration amplification is maximum. The underground structure seismic design in liquefiable field was carried on as in the conventional elastic field, then caused the underground structure to be at the dangerous condition. Researching results will provide a theoretical and experimental basis for the dynamic analysis of underground structures passing through liquefaction soil layer.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Roghayeh Abbasiverki ◽  
Richard Malm ◽  
Anders Ansell ◽  
Erik Nordström

Concrete buttress dams could potentially be susceptible to high-frequency vibrations, especially in the cross-stream direction, due to their slender design. Previous studies have mainly focused on low-frequency vibrations in stream direction using a simplified foundation model with the massless method, which does not consider topographic amplifications. This paper therefore investigates the nonlinear behaviour of concrete buttress dams subjected to high-frequency excitations, considering cross-stream vibrations. For comparison, the effect of low-frequency excitations is also investigated. The influence of the irregular topography of the foundation surface on the amplification of seismic waves at the foundation surface and thus in the dam is considered by a rigorous method based on the domain-reduction method using the direct finite element method. The sensitivity of the calculated response of the dam to the free-field modelling approach is investigated by comparing the result with analyses using an analytical method based on one-dimensional wave propagation theory and a massless approach. Available deconvolution software is based on the one-dimensional shear wave propagation to transform the earthquake motion from the foundation surface to the corresponding input motion at depth. Here, a new deconvolution method for both shear and pressure wave propagation is developed based on an iterative time-domain procedure using a one-dimensional finite element column. The examples presented showed that topographic amplifications of high-frequency excitations have a significant impact on the response of this type of dam. Cross-stream vibrations reduced the safety of the dam due to the opening of the joints and the increasing stresses. The foundation modelling approach had a significant impact on the calculated response of the dam. The massless method produced unreliable results, especially for high-frequency excitations. The free-field modelling with the analytical method led to unreliable joint openings. It is therefore recommended to use an accurate approach for foundation modelling, especially in cases where nonlinearity is considered.


2005 ◽  
Vol 93 (6) ◽  
pp. 3463-3478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah J. Griffin ◽  
Leslie R. Bernstein ◽  
Neil J. Ingham ◽  
David McAlpine

Interaural time differences (ITDs) are important cues for mammalian sound localization. At high frequencies, sensitivity to ITDs, which are conveyed only by the envelope of the waveforms, has been shown to be poorer than sensitivity to ITDs at low frequencies, which are conveyed primarily by the fine structure of the waveforms. Recently, human psychophysical experiments have demonstrated that sensitivity to envelope-based ITDs in high-frequency transposed tones can be equivalent to low-frequency fine-structure–based ITD sensitivity. Transposed tones are designed to provide high-frequency auditory nerve fibers (ANFs) with similar temporal information to that provided by low-frequency tones. We investigated neural sensitivity to ITDs in high-frequency transposed and sinusoidally amplitude modulated (SAM) tones, in the inferior colliculus of the guinea pig. Neural sensitivity to ITDs in transposed tones was found to be greater than that to ITDs in SAM tones; in response to transposed tones, neural firing rates were more modulated as a function of ITD and discrimination thresholds were found to be lower than those in response to SAM tones. Similar to psychophysical findings, ITD discrimination of single neurons in response to transposed tones for rates of modulation <250 Hz was comparable to neural discrimination of ITDs in low-frequency tones. This suggests that the neural mechanisms that mediate sensitivity to ITDs at high and low frequencies are functionally equivalent, provided that the stimuli result in appropriate temporal patterns of action potentials in ANFs.


1974 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 291-292
Author(s):  
C. Caroubalos ◽  
M. Pick ◽  
C. Chiuderi ◽  
R. Giachetti ◽  
H. Rosenberg ◽  
...  

(Solar Phys.). The fine structure in solar type IV radio bursts was studied using the 169 MHz Nançay radioheliograph and the 60 channel radiospectrograph at Utrecht (160–320 MHz). The observed fine structure includes pulsating structure, zebra patterns (parallel drifting bands) and intermediate drift bursts. All are considered as modulation of high frequency radiation by low frequency oscillations or as the result of up conversion of low frequency oscillations to higher frequencies (Rosenberg, 1973).


Author(s):  
K. Hama

The lateral line organs of the sea eel consist of canal and pit organs which are different in function. The former is a low frequency vibration detector whereas the latter functions as an ion receptor as well as a mechano receptor.The fine structure of the sensory epithelia of both organs were studied by means of ordinary transmission electron microscope, high voltage electron microscope and of surface scanning electron microscope.The sensory cells of the canal organ are polarized in front-caudal direction and those of the pit organ are polarized in dorso-ventral direction. The sensory epithelia of both organs have thinner surface coats compared to the surrounding ordinary epithelial cells, which have very thick fuzzy coatings on the apical surface.


Author(s):  
G. Y. Fan ◽  
J. M. Cowley

It is well known that the structure information on the specimen is not always faithfully transferred through the electron microscope. Firstly, the spatial frequency spectrum is modulated by the transfer function (TF) at the focal plane. Secondly, the spectrum suffers high frequency cut-off by the aperture (or effectively damping terms such as chromatic aberration). While these do not have essential effect on imaging crystal periodicity as long as the low order Bragg spots are inside the aperture, although the contrast may be reversed, they may change the appearance of images of amorphous materials completely. Because the spectrum of amorphous materials is continuous, modulation of it emphasizes some components while weakening others. Especially the cut-off of high frequency components, which contribute to amorphous image just as strongly as low frequency components can have a fundamental effect. This can be illustrated through computer simulation. Imaging of a whitenoise object with an electron microscope without TF limitation gives Fig. 1a, which is obtained by Fourier transformation of a constant amplitude combined with random phases generated by computer.


Author(s):  
M. T. Postek ◽  
A. E. Vladar

Fully automated or semi-automated scanning electron microscopes (SEM) are now commonly used in semiconductor production and other forms of manufacturing. The industry requires that an automated instrument must be routinely capable of 5 nm resolution (or better) at 1.0 kV accelerating voltage for the measurement of nominal 0.25-0.35 micrometer semiconductor critical dimensions. Testing and proving that the instrument is performing at this level on a day-by-day basis is an industry need and concern which has been the object of a study at NIST and the fundamentals and results are discussed in this paper.In scanning electron microscopy, two of the most important instrument parameters are the size and shape of the primary electron beam and any image taken in a scanning electron microscope is the result of the sample and electron probe interaction. The low frequency changes in the video signal, collected from the sample, contains information about the larger features and the high frequency changes carry information of finer details. The sharper the image, the larger the number of high frequency components making up that image. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) analysis of an SEM image can be employed to provide qualitiative and ultimately quantitative information regarding the SEM image quality.


1992 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 52-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gail L. MacLean ◽  
Andrew Stuart ◽  
Robert Stenstrom

Differences in real ear sound pressure levels (SPLs) with three portable stereo system (PSS) earphones (supraaural [Sony Model MDR-44], semiaural [Sony Model MDR-A15L], and insert [Sony Model MDR-E225]) were investigated. Twelve adult men served as subjects. Frequency response, high frequency average (HFA) output, peak output, peak output frequency, and overall RMS output for each PSS earphone were obtained with a probe tube microphone system (Fonix 6500 Hearing Aid Test System). Results indicated a significant difference in mean RMS outputs with nonsignificant differences in mean HFA outputs, peak outputs, and peak output frequencies among PSS earphones. Differences in mean overall RMS outputs were attributed to differences in low-frequency effects that were observed among the frequency responses of the three PSS earphones. It is suggested that one cannot assume equivalent real ear SPLs, with equivalent inputs, among different styles of PSS earphones.


1971 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman P. Erber

Two types of special hearing aid have been developed recently to improve the reception of speech by profoundly deaf children. In a different way, each special system provides greater low-frequency acoustic stimulation to deaf ears than does a conventional hearing aid. One of the devices extends the low-frequency limit of amplification; the other shifts high-frequency energy to a lower frequency range. In general, previous evaluations of these special hearing aids have obtained inconsistent or inconclusive results. This paper reviews most of the published research on the use of special hearing aids by deaf children, summarizes several unpublished studies, and suggests a set of guidelines for future evaluations of special and conventional amplification systems.


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