Signal integration at spherical bushy cells enhances representation of temporal structure but limits its range
- University of Leipzig, Germany
- Radboud University, Netherlands
Abstract
Neuronal inhibition is crucial for temporally precise and reproducible signaling in the auditory brainstem. We showed previously (Keine et al., 2016) that for various synthetic stimuli, spherical bushy cell (SBC) activity in the Mongolian gerbil is rendered sparser and more reliable by subtractive inhibition. Employing environmental stimuli, we demonstrate here that the inhibitory gain control becomes even more effective, keeping stimulated response rates equal to spontaneous ones. However, what are the costs of this modulation? We performed dynamic stimulus reconstructions based on neural population responses for auditory nerve (ANF) input and SBC output to assess the influence of inhibition on signal representation. Compared to ANFs, reconstructions of natural stimuli based on SBC responses were temporally more precise, but the match between acoustic and represented signal decreased. Hence, for natural sounds, inhibition at SBCs plays an even stronger role in achieving sparse and reproducible neuronal activity, while compromising general signal representation.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (RU 390/19-1)
- Rudolf Rübsamen
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (RU 390/20-1)
- Rudolf Rübsamen
European Commission (Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellowship 660328)
- Bernhard Englitz
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Ian Winter
Ethics
Animal experimentation: Animal experimentation: All experiments were approved by the Saxonian District Government, Leipzig (TVV 06/09), and conducted according to the European Communities Council Directive (86/609/ EEC).
Version history
- Received: June 23, 2017
- Accepted: September 25, 2017
- Accepted Manuscript published: September 25, 2017 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: October 3, 2017 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2017, Keine et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Signal integration at spherical bushy cells enhances representation of temporal structure but limits its range
eLife 6:e29639.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.29639
