Event Abstract

Back to Event

Population-wide bias in auditory spatial receptive fields of the barn owl’s midbrain and implications for behavior

Yunyan Wang1*, Sharad J. Shanbhag2, Brian J. Fischer3 and Jose Luis Pena1
  • 1 Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, Neuroscience, United States
  • 2 Northeast Ohio Medical University, Anatomy and Neurobiology, United States
  • 3 Seattle University, Mathematics, United States

The organization of receptive fields (RFs) within neural structures is important for local computations. The owl’s external nucleus of the inferior colliculus (ICx) contains a map of auditory space where the frontal region is overrepresented. Nonuniform distribution of tuning within populations of neurons can shape the mapping of emergent tuning properties, causing bias in local processing. We measured spatiotemporal RFs of ICx neurons using spatial-white noise analysis. We found a population-wide bias in surround suppression such that suppression was stronger by sounds coming from frontal space. This asymmetry increased with laterality in spatial tuning. The bias could be explained by a model of recurrent inhibition based on the overrepresentation of frontal space observed in ICx. The model predicted trends in surround suppression across ICx that matched the data. Thus, the uneven distribution of spatial tuning within the map could explain the topography of time-dependent tuning properties. This mechanism may have implications for orienting behaviors.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dr. Kip Keller for providing owl HRTF data samples.

References

Chichilnisky EJ (2001) A simple white noise analysis of neuronal light responses. Network 12:199-213.
Kautz D, Wagner H (1998) GABAergic inhibition influences auditory motion-direction sensitivity in barn owls. J Neurophysiol 80:172-185.
Keller CH, Hartung K, Takahashi TT (1998) Head-related transfer functions of the barn owl: measurement and neural responses. Hearing research 118:13-34.
Knudsen EI, Konishi M (1978a) A neural map of auditory space in the owl. Science 200:795-797.
Knudsen EI, Konishi M (1978b) Center-surround organization of auditory receptive fields in the owl. Science 202:778-780.
Knudsen EI, Knudsen PF (1983) Space-mapped auditory projections from the inferior colliculus to the optic tectum in the barn owl (Tyto alba). J Comp Neurol 218:187-196.
Knudsen EI, Konishi M, Pettigrew JD (1977) Receptive fields of auditory neurons in the owl. Science 198:1278-1280.
Jenison RL, Schnupp JW, Reale RA, Brugge JF (2001) Auditory space-time receptive field dynamics revealed by spherical white-noise analysis. J Neurosci 21:4408-4415.
Ma X, Suga N (2004) Lateral inhibition for center-surround reorganization of the frequency map of bat auditory cortex. J Neurophysiol 92:3192-3199.
Tailby C, Dobbie WJ, Solomon SG, Szmajda BA, Hashemi-Nezhad M, Forte JD, Martin PR (2010) Receptive field asymmetries produce color-dependent direction selectivity in primate lateral geniculate nucleus. J Vis 10:1.
Wagner H, Takahashi T (1992) Influence of temporal cues on acoustic motion-direction sensitivity of auditory neurons in the owl. J Neurophysiol 68:2063-2076.
Zhang LI, Tan AY, Schreiner CE, Merzenich MM (2003) Topography and synaptic shaping of direction selectivity in primary auditory cortex. Nature 424:201-205.

Keywords: Bias, Direction Selectivity, receptive field, spatiotemporal, surround suppression

Conference: Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology, College Park. Maryland USA, United States, 5 Aug - 10 Aug, 2012.

Presentation Type: Poster (but consider for student poster award)

Topic: Sensory: Audition

Citation: Wang Y, Shanbhag SJ, Fischer BJ and Pena J (2012). Population-wide bias in auditory spatial receptive fields of the barn owl’s midbrain and implications for behavior. Conference Abstract: Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00073

Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.

The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.

Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.

For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.

Received: 14 Mar 2012; Published Online: 07 Jul 2012.

* Correspondence: Miss. Yunyan Wang, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, Neuroscience, Bronx, United States, wangyyj@gmail.com