TY - JOUR TI - Glycinergic axonal inhibition subserves acute spatial sensitivity to sudden increases in sound intensity AU - Franken, Tom P AU - Bondy, Brian J AU - Haimes, David B AU - Goldwyn, Joshua H AU - Golding, Nace L AU - Smith, Philip H AU - Joris, Philip X A2 - King, Andrew J A2 - Carr, Catherine Emily A2 - Sanes, Dan H A2 - Colburn, Steve VL - 10 PY - 2021 DA - 2021/06/14 SP - e62183 C1 - eLife 2021;10:e62183 DO - 10.7554/eLife.62183 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62183 AB - Locomotion generates adventitious sounds which enable detection and localization of predators and prey. Such sounds contain brisk changes or transients in amplitude. We investigated the hypothesis that ill-understood temporal specializations in binaural circuits subserve lateralization of such sound transients, based on different time of arrival at the ears (interaural time differences, ITDs). We find that Lateral Superior Olive (LSO) neurons show exquisite ITD-sensitivity, reflecting extreme precision and reliability of excitatory and inhibitory postsynaptic potentials, in contrast to Medial Superior Olive neurons, traditionally viewed as the ultimate ITD-detectors. In vivo, inhibition blocks LSO excitation over an extremely short window, which, in vitro, required synaptically evoked inhibition. Light and electron microscopy revealed inhibitory synapses on the axon initial segment as the structural basis of this observation. These results reveal a neural vetoing mechanism with extreme temporal and spatial precision and establish the LSO as the primary nucleus for binaural processing of sound transients. KW - mongolian gerbil KW - temporal processing KW - sound localization KW - coincidence detection KW - glycine KW - axonal initial segment JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -