title: Microsecond precision of phase delay in the auditory system of the barn owl.
abstract: The auditory system encodes time with sub-millisecond accuracy. To shed new light on the basic mechanism underlying this precise temporal neuronal coding, we analyzed the neurophonic potential, a characteristic multiunit response, in the barn owl's nucleus laminaris. We report here that the relative time measure of phase delay is robust against changes in sound level, with a precision sharper than 20 micros. Absolute measures of delay, such as group delay or signal-front delay, had much greater temporal jitter, for example due to their strong dependence on sound level. Our findings support the hypothesis that phase delay underlies the sub-millisecond precision of the representation of interaural time difference needed for sound localization.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Biology II, Rheinisch-Westfölische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Aachen, Germany
authors.forename: Hermann
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wagner
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Brill
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kempter
authors.forename: Catherine E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Carr
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000818:Animals; D001306:Auditory Pathways / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology; D001933:Brain Stem / Q000502:physiology; D004307:Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D020305:Strigiformes / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors