Echolocating big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) emit trains of frequency-modulated (FM) biosonar signals whose duration, repetition rate, and sweep structure change systematically during interception of prey. When stimulated with a sequence of 54 FM pulse-echo pairs that mimic sounds received during search, approach, and terminal stages of pursuit, single neurons in the bat’s inferior colliculus (IC) register the occurrence of a pulse or echo with an average of spike/sound. Individual IC neurons typically respond to only a segment of the search or approach stage of pursuit, with fewer neurons persisting to respond in the terminal stage. Composite peristimulus-time-histogram plots of responses assembled across the whole recorded population of IC neurons depict the delay of echoes and, hence, the existence and distance of the simulated biosonar target, entirely as on-response latencies distributed across time. Correlated changes in pulse duration, repetition rate, and pulse or echo amplitude do modulate the strength of responses (probability of the single spike actually occurring for each sound), but registration of the target itself remains confined exclusively to the latencies of single spikes across cells. Modeling of echo processing in FM biosonar should emphasize spike-time algorithms to explain the content of biosonar images.
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November 2005
November 01 2005
Target representation of naturalistic echolocation sequences in single unit responses from the inferior colliculus of big brown bats
Mark I. Sanderson;
Mark I. Sanderson
Department of Neuroscience,
Brown University
, Providence, Rhode Island 02912
Search for other works by this author on:
James A. Simmons
James A. Simmons
a)
Department of Neuroscience,
Brown University
, Providence, Rhode Island 02912
Search for other works by this author on:
Mark I. Sanderson
James A. Simmons
a)
Department of Neuroscience,
Brown University
, Providence, Rhode Island 02912a)
Electronic mail: james̱[email protected]
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 118, 3352–3361 (2005)
Article history
Received:
April 03 2005
Accepted:
July 27 2005
Citation
Mark I. Sanderson, James A. Simmons; Target representation of naturalistic echolocation sequences in single unit responses from the inferior colliculus of big brown bats. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1 November 2005; 118 (5): 3352–3361. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2041227
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