Band-pass properties of neurons in the early auditory system of the cricket
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1
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Department of Biology, Germany
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2
BCCN Berlin, Germany
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3
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institute for Theoretical Biology, Germany
In many communication systems information is encoded in the temporal
pattern of signals. For rhythmic signals that carry information in
specific frequency bands, a neuronal system may profit from tuning its
filter properties towards a peak sensitivity in the relevant frequency
range. Such tuning may be expressed in resonant peaks of the firing
rate, located at the relevant stimulus frequencies. We explore this
hypothesis by combining experiment and model in a study on single cells
of the peripheral insect auditory system.
The cricket is a formidable model system for investigating the
processing of temporally patterned signals: to attract mating partners,
male crickets produce a rhythmic song composed of short, almost
pure-tone sound pulses. The temporal pattern of these pulses is
characteristic for a particular cricket species and is evaluated by
females. The rhythmicity of signals suggests that resonant properties
within the auditory pathway may contribute to information processing.
To verify whether resonant mechanisms are expressed in the peripheral
auditory system of the cricket we first obtained extracellular
recordings from three types of auditory neurons (AN1, AN2 and ON1). For
acoustic stimulation we chose pure-tone signals with a swept-frequency
sinusoidal envelope. The stimuli were designed to cover a wide range of
envelope frequencies which included the pulse frequency of the species’
calling song (~25 Hz). Transfer functions extracted from spectrograms of
the spike trains revealed that both AN2 and ON1 act as band-pass filters
on the stimulus envelope. For AN1 no band-pass properties were observed.
The best-frequencies of ON1 were close to the frequency of the species’
calling song, for AN2 they were slightly higher.
Are these band-pass properties indicative of resonant mechanisms in the
auditory pathway? We explored three simple models that were plausible
candidates for reproducing the observed effects. These models utilize
different, cell-intrinsic or network-based mechanisms to shape a filter:
spike-triggered adaptation, sub-threshold resonance and interplay of
excitation and inhibition. In fact, all three proposed mechanisms were
able to reproduce the band-pass properties and are thus candidates for
centering a small nervous system’s limited coding capacity on
behaviorally relevant signal components.
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by grants from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (01GQ1001A, 01GQ0901) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB618, GK1589/1).
Keywords:
adaptation,
auditory,
bandpass,
filter,
inhibition,
insect,
network,
resonance
Conference:
Bernstein Conference 2012, Munich, Germany, 12 Sep - 14 Sep, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Sensory processing and perception
Citation:
Rau
F,
Clemens
J,
Naumov
V,
Wu
W,
Hennig
R and
Schreiber
S
(2012). Band-pass properties of neurons in the early auditory system of the cricket.
Front. Comput. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
Bernstein Conference 2012.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fncom.2012.55.00233
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Received:
11 May 2012;
Published Online:
12 Sep 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Mr. Florian Rau, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Department of Biology, Berlin, -- None --, 10115, Germany, florian.rau@biologie.hu-berlin.de