title: Auditory response areas altered by intermodulation distortion products from background tones.
abstract: Response areas (RAs) of sensory neurones are dynamically modified by attention, denervation of specific afferent input, blocking inhibition, and by prolonged conditioning with extra-RA stimuli. Here we demonstrate in auditory neurones that the RA is also critically influenced by the background to stimuli. When RAs are measured in the presence of non-excitatory extra-RA tones, new RAs arise at frequencies otherwise not excitatory, as a consequence of non-linear receptor organ transduction. The new RAs can become more sensitive than the RA in quiet conditions such that neurones are then effectively tuned to a new frequency. Thus, even in a modestly complex environment, auditory neurones do not signal a fixed range of sounds but effectively code sounds to which they are otherwise unresponsive.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Monash University, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rajan
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D001306:Auditory Pathways / Q000502:physiology*; D002415:Cats; D017626:Cochlear Nucleus / Q000502:physiology; D009475:Neurons, Afferent / Q000502:physiology*; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology