Marginal shell of the anteroventral cochlear nucleus: intensity coding in single units of the unanesthetized, decerebrate cat.
Single units were recorded in the marginal shell (38 units in 10 cats) and central core (62 units in 15 cats) of the anteroventral cochlear nucleus (AVCN) in unanesthetized decerebrate cats. The recording sites of the shell units were verified in reconstructed electrode tracks, and those of the core units were verified for 18 units and based on the recording depth for 44 units. There was a substantial presence of strongly driven units in the AVCN shell exhibiting non-saturating rate-level functions to pure tone, noise or both with dynamic ranges as wide as 89 dB. This finding supports a hypothesis that the AVCN shell may play a role in encoding acoustic stimulus intensity. The AVCN shell and core populations were different as follows. The shell population had more units which had wide dynamic ranges, low spontaneous rates (SRs) or were acoustically weakly or not driven than the core population. These differences were statistically significant (P < 0.001, Fisher's exact test).
Division of Otolargyngology, Department of Surgery, Neuroscience Program, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington 06030-1110, USA.
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Ghoshal
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Kim
D000818:Animals; D001306:Auditory Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D002415:Cats; D017626:Cochlear Nucleus / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D003243:Consciousness; D003655:Decerebrate State / Q000503:physiopathology; D016057:Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology